


Cityscapes

by echowell



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, PTSD RECOVERY, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, References to Drugs, Stucky - Freeform, Trauma, Violence, animal death/violence, eventual gay stuff, like seriously there is a whole lot of violence, lots of flashbacks, obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:11:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7602919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echowell/pseuds/echowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The cat makes eye contact with the Asset from the windowsill, and emits an affronted, drawn-out yowl. </i>
</p><p><i>The cat is an Abnormal Occurrence.</i><br/>-<br/>In which Buck has a mental breakdown stretching across three continents, Steve trails around after him looking sad, and I mercilessly exploit a number of non-human animals for kudos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baranovich, Belarus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all. This is my first fanfic for a long, long time (although there's definitely a couple of dodgy and explicit frostiron fanfics out there that have my name on them) and I'd appreciate any feedback! I've got the first 20k words written and will try to post regularly, but am spending most of next month in another country, so might not be able to post much then. 
> 
> The first half of this fic is going to mostly focus on Bucky being a Sad Trauma as he wanders through various countries, but eventually it should shift to more Stucky-friendly territory. 
> 
> I also can't post this without pointing you guys in the direction of Ain't No Grave by spitandvinegar - it's hands-down the best fanfic I've ever read, in any fandom, is better than about 80% of the published novels I've read, too. Go and read it. Like, right now.

There is a cat on the windowsill.

Abnormal occurrences excluded, the Asset wakes at 0600 hours, local time. One hour of exercise is performed in order to prevent weakening of the body. If possible, essential nutrients are consumed, for the same purpose. Necessary personal hygiene is maintained, to cultivate a non-remarkable appearance and odour. Routine surveillance of the areas surrounding the Asset’s location is undertaken. The Asset will leave the location at irregular intervals to procure supplies.

This location has been selected as one that is very unlikely to attract unwanted attention. It is presumably an architectural accident, an awkward single room sandwiched between two drab office suites, too small to be a studio flat, too big to be a spare cupboard. The water and the electricity have both been disconnected for several years, the front door has rusted shut, and the windows are caked so thickly with grime from the passing trains that seeing into the location from the outside is impossible.

The cat makes eye contact with the Asset from the windowsill, and emits an affronted, drawn-out yowl.

The cat is an Abnormal Occurrence.

The Asset considers.

Continuation of yowling is likely to draw attention, and is therefore not acceptable. The cat must either enter the location or leave the windowsill. Opening the window wide enough to allow the cat in may attract attention if the location is under observation. The cat must then be dealt with once inside the location. Assessment: less than ideal.

If the window is opened enough to allow the Asset to reach through it, the cat can be disabled, and removed from the windowsill, thus preventing the cat’s return and minimising possibility of detection.

This is the most acceptable solution.

The Asset draws himself to his feet, sets down his lunch, and goes to the window. The cat watches him quizzically with one green eye. There’s a pitted, scabby hollow where the other should be. It jumps when the Asset cracks the window open.

The Asset takes a butterfly knife from the scarred table and flicks it open.

The cat stands. Severing its left rear Achilles tendon and pushing it from the windowsill should take no more than fifteen seconds. This will resolve the abnormal occurrence.

The Asset shifts the knife in his hand. The abnormal occurrence blinks at him from the other side of the grimy glass.

After a long moment, the Asset yanks open the window. (Illogical. Recalibration required?) The abnormal occurrence flumps to the floor with a conversational mewl, leaving motes of dust swirling in the air.

The Asset peers at the window dubiously.

The abnormal occurrence stalks across the room, and begins to eat his lunch.

 

-

When the Asset leaves the flat at 1528, there are only a handful of people milling about the park (his brain provides the information automatically, rapidfire - _two office workers lunch break female late forties low threat – garbage collector male smoking overweight back issues low threat-_ ), but he feels them like splinters under his nails. The rustle of the wind through the bare, black tree branches seems to whisper up through the pavement and surround him. He imagines water trickling up from between the icy stones, pooling round his ankles, rising-

Unnecessary. Focus.

He passes squat blocks of flats and cheap offices, all built with a familiar Soviet-esque brutalism. They’re set far apart, the streets built wide, and the sky is a dizzying, open abyss above him. Howlingly empty. The dirty, metallic taste of the steelworks sticks in the back of his throat. The Asset stares hard at the pavement, scarf pulled up around his mouth.

_Seems like you’re cracking up, champ._

The Asset’s thoughts are disorganised. The Asset knows that it is long overdue for a reset and a spell in storage.

The cold suddenly seems a little more vicious.

He knows that he should head on past the park to the BelMart on the main drag, that he’s visited the corner shop too many times, that his route is becoming familiar, easy to trace – but the thought of walking down Brestskaya Street, surrounded by people, standing under the scouring glare of those neon supermarket lights with all that fuckin’ noise all round him –

He takes a deep breath, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. The cold aches and scrapes inside him. His throat is tight. The Asset’s thoughts. Are disorganised.

-

“Mr. Sadowski, I didn’t know you had a cat,”

Assessment: the woman who runs the _Magazin_ on the corner is one ugly dame. Her lips and cheeks are oddly puffy, the skin tight and shiny, and half of her front teeth are cracked and brown. She also picked up on the Asset’s Russian accent the second she heard it (even HYDRA cells ain’t sadistic enough to make their cyborg assassins learn Belarusian, okay, even Nazis have limits) and has since taken a bit of a shine to him. Which makes returning to her shop an unforgivable breach of protocol. But then, so is having a panic attack in BelMart, most likely. So.

“I’m looking after it for a friend,” he says, thumping several more tins of cat food down onto the counter.

Damned if he’s gonna let some one-eyed punk of an Abnormal Occurrence steal his lunch two days running.

-

When he gets home, the Abnormal Occurrence has not only eaten his dinner, but also puked it back up again. On his combat boots. _You’re an Abnormal Pain in the Ass_ , he wants to tell it. The urge is unproductive and illogical, so he ignores it.

-

_There is a hacksaw gritting through the gristle that holds his shoulder together and he can feel it, feel every fuckin’ jagged tooth of it, there are bright lights, there’s a scream, there’s a scream, there’s a shrieking goddamn howl at the back of his throat but they’ve stopped up his mouth with their foul-tasting rubber bitepiece so he can’t and and and there’s – work – to be done on his insides, on his guts and heart, ribs to be sawn apart and opened up like a fuckin’ oyster shell Jesus fuck Jesus fuck-_

_There are laughing men with cruel fuckin’ faces, and there’s someone sobbing in a cell that his brain shies away from even in his sleep-_

_And there’s a face, a face he knows or knew or wants to know, thin and ill, and kind, kind, so fuckin’ kind, big kind blue eyes watching him with that unbearable kindness as he puts his hands around a thin neck and crushes the windpipe flat._

He wakes only when the body has gone completely cold.

-

The streets are quiet. Pretty typical for a winter weeknight in a place where it’s quite possible to have a few too many, pass out somewhere, and freeze to death before your designated driver comes to get you. Groups huddle under the streetlights, cigarettes flaring in cupped, gloved hands. Here and there, couples and lone figures trudge through the snow.

Warmth washes over him as someone leaves a bar. The smell – smokes, cheap beer, sweat – is so achingly familiar that for a minute it’s all he can do to just stand there, thinking of laughter, hazy light, cigarettes. A deep, earthy taste at the back of his throat – _whiskey,_ Bucky thinks, _whiskey_ – an arm that is his, that is really his, slung around a bony ribcage – telling someone _you dumb punk, you really got the constitution of a dishrag, dontcha-_

The bar door slams shut, and the cold draws close again. He thinks of the rotten sweetsickness of vodka and a table full of plastic shot glasses. HYDRA likes to know their agents can function no matter what. He thinks of sitting in a cold cold chair. Hearing a cold voice.

-

_“Семнадцать” the voice says, and he drinks. A cold sickness creeps down his throat, but he does not gag._

_“Каково расстояние между Ленинградом и Москвой?” the voice asks._

_“Шестьсот тридцать километров” he answers. There’s silence. The scratch of pencil against paper._

_“Восемнадцать” the voice says. He drinks._

-

Outside a shitty bar in Belarus, the Asset clenches his metal fist until it creaks. Unproductive. Fucking unproductive.  Something hot and horrible crawls under his skin.

-

Here is what is known about Jaraslau Kavalyow. He was 26 years of age. He left education at 16; never entered further training or long-term work. His physical traits are no longer relevant. Absent father. Lived with his mother in a two-bed flat near Baranovich Central Station. Few friends. Two ex-girlfriends who never pressed charges. Had certainly committed a range of muggings and petty thefts in the past, and may well have intended to commit more on the night of his disappearance. His body was found in the meltwater of Lake Zhlobinskaya almost six months after his disappearance. His neck had been crushed to half its normal size.

In a city as small as Baranovich, anonymity is difficult to maintain, which means manhunts rarely last long.

In weather as cold as Belarusian winters, the ice takes a long time to melt.

The Asset knows these things.

-

“You look tired, Mr. Sadowski,” the lady at Shpion Magazin says to the Asset.

-

“I guess that friend of yours isn’t coming back for his cat, huh,” the lady at Shpion Magazin says to the Asset.

-

The Asset dreams of a kind, familiar face often. One part of him opens its mouth, a half-remembered name on its tongue. A different, sharper part bares its teeth, because to abandon a kill order is _unacceptable_.

He wakes shaking and retching, but forces himself to lie still, to grit his teeth.

Unproductive. Unproductive.

-

The Abnormal Occurrence now comes and goes with such regularity that the window is perpetually open for it, because fuck it. The Abnormal Occurrence is the colour of very dirty dishwater, and was probably once long-haired, although so much of its fur is missing or matted that it can be hard to tell. It uses his top-of-the-range tac vest as a nest and likes the metal arm better than the normal one. It has taken to sleeping by his head on the arm of the battered couch, curled up into a raggedy, one-eyed loaf. If the Asset thrashes too vigorously in his sleep, the Abnormal Occurrence bites his head.

For some reason, this behaviour is acceptable.

-

One day he finds an old, fuck-ugly derelict diner in town. The windows that aren’t boarded up are practically opaque with dirt, the signs are cracked and peeling, the furniture inside is falling apart, but he still thinks he can see what it was meant to look like. Pure Americana, cheerful, maybe a bit tacky – retro stools, milkshakes, posters on the walls, bright lights, big city.

He pauses there, staring through the dusty glass, and a strange feeling laps at his insides. He finds himself thinking of a great, silent lake, of water inching up the insides of a building. Slowly. Slowly.

-

The next time he goes to the Magazin, the woman at the counter fumbles his change, and in scrambling to stop it falling, presses her hands firmly against his. For a moment their eyes meet. He knows better than to jerk his arm away. If she feels the metal under his thick gloves, she says nothing of it.

That night he scans the street outside his window restlessly, chasing every flicker of movement.

-

Two days later, he finds faint indents in the snow beneath one of the trees at the edge of the park, and he knows.

Within the hour, the flat has been stripped of any identifying possessions.

The Asset spends the day curled into the underside of the railway bridge, still as a statue and quiet as the dead.

When he stalks back to the location at dusk, he isn’t disappointed – a figure crouches at the park fence, all but invisible, head angled towards what used to be his building.

The Asset watches impassively. The flat is unremarkable from the outside, a dark and dingy window among other dark and dingy windows. The inside is empty. There is nothing to indicate that he was ever there – that anyone has ever been there at all. Good luck to anyone trying to find _any_ kind of proof that this is where-

A little blip of shadow interrupts his thoughts. It breaks away from the trees, lazily wanders across the snow, scrabbles up a porch, leaps onto his windowsill and _yowl_ s like a big fuckin’ one-eyed arrow.

The Asset grinds his teeth in the dark.

-

“The keepers of the Red Room like to make sure those they find disappointing end up leading disappointing lives.” Natasha’s voice is impassive. “There’s a lot of ways they can do that.”

“Plastic surgery?”

“Can go wrong very easily.”

“Geez.” Steve thinks of taught skin and broken teeth. He trails one finger along the scarred, stained tabletop, brushing away the dust. “She was sure it was him?”

“Sofia might have been a bad assassin, but she was always a good spy,” Natasha replies. ”It was him.”

Steve goes to join her at the grimy window and peers out into the icy park.

“It’s called Malady Park,” Natasha says, her fingers resting on the sill. She glances at him, hints of a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth. “You can always trust ex-Soviets to take the cheery path.”

He lets his eyes drift over the rotten floorboards, the shredded curtains, the stained couch. 

“Can’t you just.”


	2. Kiev, Ukraine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this contains a description of attempted sexual assault, so if that's going to make you uncomfortable please skip ahead!
> 
> Thanks for your kind comments <3

Sasha usually considers herself a pretty streetsmart woman – shit, she grew up in the USSR, you know? She’s knocked around neighbourhoods with shitty reputations at night and she knows how men can get aggressive when they see something they can’t have. Knows how to handle them when they do. But Shevchenko Boulevard isn’t a shitty neighbourhood and 2pm isn’t night, so when a pair of strong hands seize her upper arm and drag her bodily into an alley - at first she’s too shocked to respond.

The man slams her against the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of her, hands vice-like on her arms.

“What a fucking _babe_.” His grin doesn’t reach his eyes. “Seeing someone special, huh? You’re all dolled up.”

“Get fucked,” Sasha spits. “What the fuck do you th-“

Without a word, the man takes one hand from her arm, and gives her breast a hard, painful squeeze.

Whenever she’s thought about this – about a strange man and an alleyway and horrible, groping hands – Sasha has never had any doubt that, if it happened to her, she wouldn’t make it _easy_. She’s heard girls who say that they _just froze_ or _couldn’t do anything_ , and she’s always known that if it happened to her, she’d do things differently. She’d shout. She’d scream and spit and swear. She’s read all the self-defence articles; she knows where a solar plexus is and how to punch without breaking her hand and –

And for some reason, none of it means shit. She stands and gapes, a horrendous, sick feeling sitting heavy in the pit of her stomach.

Her brain feels like it’s full of white noise. Her pulse hammers in her throat.

She watches blankly as the man presses his face closer to hers, sniggering, distantly feels his breath on her face.

“I think you liked that, honey,” he says. He’s young. Kind of good-looking, in a way. Not the kind of scabby guy you imagine when you imagine a rapist. “I think I should t-“

The sudden _CRACK_ and the blur of metal centimetres from her face make Sasha’s insides clench in terror.

Uncomprehending, she stares at the ground. The man has fallen on his side. Blood begins to trickle from a cut above his eye.

She looks up at the same moment as the newcomer. He’s youngish, pale even by Ukrainian standards, his hair falling in greasy strands around his face. Scruffy, wearing a tattered black jacket and rough work trousers, sporting several days’ worth of stubble and bruise-like shadows under his eyes.

He gapes at her for a second, then glances at the body on the floor, and blanches. For a moment Sasha wonders if he’s going to be sick.

But the man only stammers something she doesn’t understand – in English, she thinks, but maybe with an accent – turns, and runs.

A moment later, a raggedy, one-eyed cat scrabbles down the wall of the alley and inelegantly thumps to the floor. It peers down the alley in concern, glances at Sasha, gives her a conversational yowl, and then trots away in pursuit.

-

“You still haven’t told me how we know he’s here.”

Steve strongly suspects that Natasha is enjoying herself. She’s lounging back in one of the coffeeshop’s deep red chairs, makeup flawless, Russian-style hat hanging from one finger. A thick, elegant coat is slung over the back of her chair, she’s swapped her normal shoes for these expensive-looking leather and fur boots, and _we’re both just carrying duffel bags, where the hell does she keep this stuff?_

“Well, it makes sense,” Natasha says. “Central Europe’s locked up pretty tight these days with terror attacks, difficult to slip under the radar if you’re unusual.” Her face remains totally still as she adds – “The Winter Soldier was stationed here three times between 1950 and now, maybe more. It’s not quite his home turf, but it’s close.”

Steve fiddles with his coffee cup, trying to keep his expression schooled, blank. He knows it doesn’t fool her.

“Is that it? It doesn’t seem much to go on.”

She smiles faintly. “He was seen switching buses at Brest, and then again getting on the Kiev train at Rivne. He’s here, Steve.”

“You have contacts.”

Natasha’s smile broadens imperceptibly. She raises her hot chocolate to her lips. “You know I do.”

The inside of the coffeeshop is warm, a smooth gold contrast to the blue-grey streets outside. 3PM and it’s already getting dark. Steve lets his eyes slide over the other tables before returning to Natasha.

“What kind of contacts?”

The corner of her mouth curls upwards as she sips. Apparently that’s as much of an answer as he’s getting.

-

Known fact: the Asset was stationed in Kiev in 1948, 1957, 1985, 1991, and 1993. The assignments carried out in this period involved five kill missions (successful), seventeen interrogations (successful), and lasted a total of 57 days.

The Asset is no longer able to accurately navigate Kiev city centre from memory alone. Fault possible.

The Asset cannot remember the details of his third through fifth assignments located in Ukraine, although he suspects that they would resurface were a mission report ordered by an authorised agent. Attempting to recall specific details of interrogations performed by the Asset induces a strange, heavy feeling in the Asset’s stomach. Fault possible.

The Asset can no longer understand Ukrainian; it blurs and crumbles apart in his ears. Sometimes old trigger words leap out at him from people’s conversations and run through him like electric shocks. The Asset’s right hand twitches periodically; this is involuntary. The Asset has a pounding headache. The Asset feels like hammered shit.

Asessment: malfunction.

He tilts his head back and peers up at the buildings around him. Kiev has its beauty spots, no-one can deny, plenty of finely carved marble and golden domes. But it also has its fair share of vast, blank-faced tower blocks, and these tower blocks aren’t winning any beauty contests any time soon. They loom over him, row on row, dark windows glaring out like so many sullen pair of eyes.

Assessment: ugly as fuck.

The Asset imagines painting the towers. He imagines waves of colour swirling up over the grimy concrete, vermillion and violet and acid green. Imagines it rising up like Spring, like warmth. Imagines the buildings cracking under it. Falling apart.

The Asset thumps his head back against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut.

Fuckin’ malfunction.

-

The hotel is a fancy one, with lots of white marble and unnecessarily shiny fittings. The plush carpet in Steve’s room is so white he feels like he might get it dirty just by looking at it. They’d been welcomed at the front desk by a managed who seemed very pleased to see them, and used lots of words like _honoured_ and _privileged_ and _symbolic_.

“I know a guy high up in the civil service who’s very keen to stick it to Russia just now,” Natasha had said. “He’ll fix us up. Nothing sticks it to Russia like giving Captain America the superhero treatment.”

Steve doesn’t really know how to feel about that.

He stands by the floor-to-ceiling windows and looks out over Kiev, feeling the faint chill of the glass without touching it. The city is spread out below him. It isn’t a huge place, but it stretches and stretches, the veins of it glowing in the darkness.

Bucky is somewhere down there.

Steve lets himself think about Bucky, just for a moment. Not the Winter Soldier, and not the James B. Barnes he’d found pale-faced, strapped to a table behind enemy lines – Bucky. A raggedy Brooklyn kid with a wide smile. Bucky, who flirted indiscriminately and couldn’t sit still in church. Who scared off bullies and was kind to stray cats.

 _That Bucky is dead,_ a voice that sounds like Natasha’s murmurs in his head. Steve presses his lips together, and lets his forehead rest against the window. Then he thinks of the cleaners and jerks his head back, guiltily attempting to wipe away the smear left on the glass.

If Bucky is here, what’s he doing? Natasha was far better at answering questions like that than he was. Natasha would have thought through all the possibilities before they even arrived, plotting out the trajectories of each potential Bucky, working through them like math problems.

Okay, so. Think logically. Steve’s brow furrows a bit.

Option one – it’s the Winter Soldier. Okay. It’s possible. He’s been here before. Who would he be after?

 _Me, probably_ , Steve thinks glumly.

The figure on Nat’s grainy CCTV printout – taken from the cameras at Rivne Station – had been wearing the Winter Soldier’s uniform, but the trousers had been ripped at the knees, the tac vest undone with a grimy t-shirt underneath. He’d stood with his head down and his shoulders hunched. Hardly the Winter Soldier’s standard posture.

Okay, option two – he’s a blank, a HYDRA asset without an assignment. Steve thinks of all the abandoned hideouts he’s cleared out over the past six months, all those grimy, unheated rooms with newspaper taped over the windows.  Something aches deep in his chest.

Option three – he’s Bucky – on the run and traumatised to hell, but just Bucky. Steve’s heart twinges, even though the rational parts of him know that it can’t be true, because James B. Barnes hasn’t been _just Bucky_ since he fell behind enemy lines.

Still, he lets himself imagine it for a moment, even though it’s stupid, even though it makes him feel the smallest he’s ever felt (and hey, that’s really saying something). He imagines Bucky laughing at the edge of the water, that one summer when the heat was so intense the tarmac on the goddamn road practically melted. He couldn’t go jump in the docks like the others because his lungs were bad, so Buck came and lurked at the edge as he sat and sketched, feet dangling in the cool water. Bucky’s hand on his shoulder at his mom’s funeral. Bucky sliding his first beer across a sticky table towards him, and Bucky dragging him home afterwards, saying _Christ, Stevie, you shoulda told me you were such a lightweight, would’ve left my good shoes at home, you dumb punk-_

Steve isn’t Natasha. He thumps down onto the bed, all these different versions of Bucky tumbling together inside his head as night draws in.  

-

The Chernobyl museum is closed on Sundays. A skeleton staff hang around until 4, but after that, it’s empty. It has running water. Mirrors. An opportunity to ascertain appropriate appearance and level of personal hygiene. Sources of nutrition. Poor security systems. Wide air vents.

Assessment: perfect.

The inside of the museum is a maze of dim corridors, full of exhibits that suddenly loom up out of the dark. The Asset ghosts past pictures of the exclusion zone – ragged ferris wheels, smashed windows, abandoned buildings in Pripyat – with the Abnormal Occurrence padding determinedly after him. A moss-covered street catches his eye and he pauses. There’s something familiar about the cracked stone, the shattered streetlamps, the empty forest. A date flashes to mind – _1986:December:03_ – but the memory breaks apart almost as soon as it appears. Faulty recall.

The Asset scowls at his own shadowy reflection. Malfunction.

He’s seen his own face in museums. James Buchanan Barnes. 107th. 1917. 1945. The name and the numbers were not a shock to him. HYDRA had never pretended that the body had no history, even if they had not provided him with all the known facts. The cheerful face with its crooked smile – it had been alien to him, but not a surprise. All bodies have history.

But it wasn’t just James Buchanan Barnes, it was James Buchanan _‘Bucky’_ Barnes, and for some reason the nickname, more than anything, had lodged in his gut like a stone. It sat there right alongside all the other things he couldn’t forget, the things he still turns over in his mind, again and again and again. A man on an overpass. Poland, 1941. Someone sobbing in a cell as a metal hand unlocks the door. A kind face that stares at him in bewilderment. Opens its mouth. Says _Bucky?_

The Asset realises he has been staring at a photograph of a dead mechanic for far too long and feels a twinge of deep, unreasonable anger. All bodies have history. But history is history. Fuckin’ stupid to bring it into the present. Fuckin’ _malfunction_.

The Abnormal Occurrence is lolling on top of the main desk, paws in the air. It had proved surprisingly – well, he would say _hard to get rid of_ , but the Asset would be lying if he said he’d put his best efforts into trying – amiably perching in the luggage racks of trains and under waiting room chairs. It gives him a quizzical look as he stalks past. The Asset takes a tourists’ map from the rack, pulls himself up onto the desk, and spreads it out on his lap.

With a faint mewl, the Abnormal Occurrence rolls to its feet, and draws closer to examine the map. It peers up to meet the Asset’s gaze, and tentatively places one paw over Obolons’kyi District.

“Don’t,” the Asset growls.

Without breaking eye contact, the Abnormal Occurrence delicately springs onto the map, settles down on the crumpled paper, and begins to purr.

-

The problem with Steve, Natasha thinks, is that he just burns a bit too hot.

She strolls into Besarabsky Market, scruffy jacket pulled tight around her, eyes casually sliding over the stalls.

He _feels_. And you can see it in his eyes, that red-gold warmth at the heart of him, whatever it is that makes him so human.

She picks up an apple and shines it on her sleeve. Weighs it in her hand.

People who look into her eyes see only what she wants them to see.

“The harvest has been good this year,” the woman next to her says. “It must have been, that they have enough to – ah – how you say-” She pauses, stumbling over her words, and gives Natasha an embarrassed smile. “Sorry, I am not Ukrainian – I am from France originally…”

This is a coded question. Natasha’s face breaks into a bright smile.

“ _Mais non!_ No way!” she says. “My mother is French – I grew up in Arliennes.” This is the correct answer.

The problem with Steve is that he cannot play this game.

“Aha! It is so nice to meet a fellow Frenchwoman here,” the agent tells her in French. By her accent, she might be Russian – but Russian draws ears in some parts of Ukraine these days. “I stay in Troeschina,” the woman babbles on, absent-mindedly picking out apples. “It is poor, but I like it. In the morning, I like to go and sit by the lake and watch the sun rise – ah! – every day I go.”

“Sounds beautiful,” Natasha says.

The woman laughs and reaches out to pat her arm. There isn’t the slightest trace of a lie in her smiling face.

“My friend, it’s a rough bit of town. Make sure you’re prepared for that.”

“Oh, I am always prepared for that.”

Natasha lingers after the woman bids her goodbye, haggling with the stall owner, scowling at his prices.

She leaves the market with a paper bag full of apples in one hand, and the other fingering the pistol that the other agent had slipped into her pocket.

The problem with Steve is that he’s always good.

Luckily the same can’t be said of her.

-

Protocol states that Assets must maintain enough basic hygiene to not be conspicuous – whatever that means in context. There are enough people sleeping rough in Kiev that the Asset – _Bucky,_ a bit of his brain spits at him – figures it doesn’t matter much.

He knows he’s a state, that his hair is greasy and his stubble is halfway to being a beard. His clothes are so filthy now that even walking into a shop to filch something new might be problematic.

Just blending in, right? Yeah. 

He shifts on the bench and stares out over the lake, his breath fogging around his mouth. The tip of his nose is numb. He absent-mindedly raises his hands to his mouth to blow into them, before remembering that there isn’t much point anymore.

Someone’s driven a battered car onto the lake. It sits incongruently on the scarred ice, a rusted and blackened shell. When Spring begins, the ice will start to weaken, and it’ll fall through, go crashing down into the water. Fall apart.

-

The statue looms over the plaza. To Steve’s eyes, it’s at least twice as big as Lady Liberty; he feels like an ant at its feet. It’s a woman, glaring into the distance, muscles standing out along her raised arm. She carries a sword in one hand and a shield bearing the good ol’ hammer and sickle in the other. _The Motherland_ , the tourist leaflet in his hands tells him.

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about this,” he tells Natasha. She just smiles. “What’s our plan?”

She shrugs. “We start looking, I guess. Kiev isn’t huge, and I figure a guy with a metal arm sticks out.”

Steve watches her. She’s leaning back against a railing, idly looking out across the plaza, looking for all the world like she’s here on holiday.  

 _She’s hiding something_ , Steve thinks.

“Nat,” he says.

“What?” she answers, looking up to meet his eyes. Seeing his expression, she frowns. “Look, Steve, I’m on your side here.” Her voice goes low and melodic with sincerity. She leans in towards him. “I’ve checked with all the agents I know. The moment someone sees him, you’ll be the first to know.”

“And who’ll be second?” Steve says quietly. Natasha draws back, lips tightening. With a glimmer of surprise, he realises he was right.

There’s a pause, and then-

“He’s in Troeschina,” she says bluntly, looking straight ahead. “It’s on the outskirts of town. Rough. Go to Radunka Lake at dawn. Apparently he’s there every day.”

For a moment, Steve is so giddy with this information – with the image of him, the confirmation that he’s here – that he doesn’t realise the implications. When he does, it’s a bucket of ice down his back.

“How long do I have?” he says. “Before others come for him.”

Natasha’s face is a mask. “Go at dawn tomorrow. That’s your chance.”

He looks at her in profile, at the downward-turned corners of her mouth, her crossed arms.

“Thank you,” he says. She just rolls her eyes, swings round to face him.

“Whatever. Thank me by letting me get a picture of you looking sad in front of the statue of the Motherland.”

-

Leaving the hotel the next morning feels like a dream. It’s still dark out, the snow eerily bright, the cold vicious. Steve walks to the station in a daze and stands on the freezing platform, keeping his eyes low. Bucky’s chosen a suburb so far out that the metro doesn’t even go there.

His palms are sweating, but his chest feels strangely hollow. Natasha hadn’t offered him a gun, so he hadn’t had to refuse her.

-

The Asset sits. The Asset stares out over the ice. The Asset’s thoughts are disorganised.

The cold slowly works its way into him.

He raises one hand, and takes in a lungful of smoke, metal fingers cold against his lips. He’d bought the cigarettes on impulse, something in the branding leaping out at him, grabbing him, keeping him. The first drag had sent an uncomfortable ache stabbing through his chest – Assets’ lungs are valuable, so Assets do not smoke.

The second drag had been better, though. The third had felt like home.

-

The lake is barely a five-minute walk from Troeschina station. Steve has a dizzy, wired feeling as he goes down the empty streets, forcing himself not to run, weaving around potholes, passing under the vast tower blocks.

He’s prepared for Bucky not to be there. He’s prepared for walking around the frozen lake once, twice, just to be sure, prepared to find his hideout abandoned, his things discarded. They’ve followed a lot of tip-offs over the past few months, and this one is tenuous at best.

And Steve’s prepared to feel disappointed – because no matter how prepared you are, there’s always a flicker of hope.

So when he turns to find the vista of the lake in front of him – ice glowing softly, not a whisper of wind – he’s ready for the emptiness of it.

It’s square, obviously man-made, a concrete overpass at one end. There’s a paved walkway around its edges, functional rather than pretty, but probably still nice in the summer. There are a few bare trees. Iron benches. Not a soul in sight, apart from one figure, slumped on one of the benches just a few feet in front of him.

_Wait._

Disbelief begins to spread through Steve like anaesthetic.

The figure’s shoulders are a little narrower than he remembers. He hasn’t cut his hair – it falls in dirty straggles, reaching almost to his shoulders. His clothes are filthy and ragged.

It doesn’t really hit home until the figure takes a drag from a cigarette, and Steve sees the glint of a metal arm.

He takes an involuntary step forward, his mouth falling open, his throat going tight with all the things he wants to say, but the figure – _Bucky_ – glances back at him, and jumps as if given an electric shock. In one sudden, jagged movement, Bucky is on his feet and facing him, gaping, every muscle in his body tense.

It’s him.

It’s really him.

He looks rough – his face is thin, he hasn’t shaved, and his eyes are wide and wild with shock – in fact, he looks like he’s been through ten shades of hell. But he doesn’t look like the Winter Soldier.

“Bucky-” Steve says, taking a tentative step forward, reaching out –

Bucky bolts.

Steve swears under his breath and takes off after him, adrenaline coursing through him – the Winter Soldier is faster than him, and even sans super serum, Bucky could always hold his own in a footrace, but there’s a desperate, hoping part of him that thinks if he just _wants it_ enough, he can still catch him.

Steve follows him along the walkway, feet pounding the concrete, into the mess of streets. They pass a couple of stray dogs and a guy sleeping rough shouts something as he tears past, sprinting after Bucky’s retreating back. Bucky jinks left, giving Steve a glimpse of his panicked face before he throws himself bodily at the front door of one of the tower blocks, and disappears inside. Steve follows, seconds behind, charging into the darkened stairwell. He skips over trash bags, broken glass crunching underfoot, the stale air catching in his throat.

Bucky is already on the stairs. Steve charges up after him, blood rushing in his ears – five floors, six – he hears a crash above, and peers up to see that Bucky has given up on the stairs entirely and is hauling himself up the centre of the stairwell, leaping from one bannister to the next.

“Bucky, _wait!_ ” Steve yells, before continuing on up, chest aching and head swimming. He keeps going, even as the gap between them widens, even as Bucky’s footsteps fade, because if he could just talk to him, just get him to _see-_

When Steve reaches the roof, it’s empty. Of course it is. He stands and stares back towards the city, gasping for breath, eyes stinging with the sudden cold.  


	3. Donetsk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the reviews, you are all so nice <3 Updates might be a bit slow for the next few weeks, I'm moving to Calais to do some volunteering and I'm not sure how my internet will be.

_The place is a mess, a fuckin’ mess._

Bucky can’t help thinking it as he creeps past buildings with huge great holes blown out of them, slumping in on themselves, stones crumbling into the street. He glances at the vast scorch marks that stretch up the walls, imagines the initial hit – the blinding light, the sudden, vicious wall of flame – and suppresses a shudder. The air tastes of ash.

The Abnormal Occurrence doesn’t seem bothered, padding along beside him, pausing periodically to sniff at bits of twisted metal and lumps of stone.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you, sweetheart,” Bucky mutters. “You’re fallin’ in with a rough crowd.”

He glances over his shoulder – the road is deserted, the streetlights out – then shifts his bag, and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Camels. Fuckin’ old man cigarettes – _ironic, huh_ – but the brand had leapt out at him from the shelves of the kiosk. He lights up with a match; couldn’t quite bring himself to invest in one of those shitty plastic lighters.

Absently tossing the spent match to the ground, he takes a long drag and holds it in his lungs, closing his eyes for a moment. A handprint of warmth blooms inside him.

His head feels like a bundle of loose connections – fuckin’ slashed wires, sparks jumping from a hundred ragged, smoking ends. He nudges a stone aside with one foot, free hand clenching and unclenching at his side.

Some of it’s fine. Brooklyn nights flickering behind his eyes – lounging on the fire exits, cheap beer, smokes, smell of the barracks, kissing dames in alleyways – he can get a handle on that, he can _cope_. Not that World War Two was real fuckin’ enjoyable for anyone, but it didn’t tear him apart. It was fuckin’ comprehensible. ( _Not for everyone,_ his brain helpfully interjects, and for a suffocating moment he’s back in France seeing Tom Harris from the 103rd headed for court martial, mute, hands shaking and face white as a sheet.)

But then sometimes it’s what came after, and that’s – that’s a long, slow-motion, shrieking mess of blood and ash and bodies and petrol, wires, needles. He sees scarred tracts of land below as he crouches in a plane, the mask tight across his face. He sees a girl, sobbing helplessly as he winds metal fingers into her hair, jerks her head back. He sees a small figure hunched over in a cell-

It comes and goes.

The Asset ( _Bucky?_ ) huffs out a breath through his teeth and keeps moving, past a series of townhouses with boarded up windows, bullet marks in the walls. There’s a faint but constant panic thrumming through him, a low energy likes ants under his skin, and a part of him is thinking _malfunction probable_ -

He sucks in a lungful of smoke. Exhales slowly.

Steve’s face goes round and round in his head. Steve at his mom’s funeral, fists clenched, resolutely not crying. Steve on the news, looking about as comfortable as a deer in a fuckin’ headlight factory. Steve with three bullets in his gut. Steve standing on the banks of that lake with his mouth half-open, stupid hopeful look on his stupid goddamn face. Assignment. Target. Fuckin’ history.

He takes another drag – inhales too quickly, sending a deep pain lancing through his chest. He does not cough. 

He moves on, past the entrance to the park. The sculptures inside are oddly sinister, black metal figures twisting up out of the snow – row upon row. A cold, stalking part of him knows where they’re going; it drives him on through the city, calm and sure. The Abnormal Occurrence hangs back to rub its face against the railings, back arched, and Bucky pauses, waits until the cat comes trotting after him.

 _Illogical,_ the cold part of him murmurs. _Assessment: malfunction._

It’s the cold part that picks out a green Renault from the cars parked along the edges of the street, that whispers _assessment: unremarkable_. In five minutes, Bucky’s sitting at the wheel, fingers prying off the plastic panel under the steering column, fishing out the wires inside.

He tries not to think of Steve hunkered down next to him in a grimy Leipzig suburb, looking pained because _that’s someone’s car, Buck_ – laughing as his fingers worked open the dashboard, saying _c’mon, sweetheart, you’re gonna have to learn this sometime._

-

He’s halfway between Mar’ivka and Zelenopillya, 20 miles from the Russian border, when a roadblock flashes in the headlights. It’s makeshift – breezeblocks and old scaffolding piled up against oil drums, crates, pallets. When he brings the car to a halt in front of it, three men draw out of the shadows. They’re wearing a ramshackle mix of hiking boots, tracksuit bottoms and hockey gear; two have mismatched pistols, whilst the other is carrying a hunting rifle. Makeshift soldiers.

The tallest of them raps on the window, and gestures for Bucky to get out. Bucky complies.

The man spits a question at him – the language is familiar, but the words make no sense, slurring into each other inside his head. Bucky squints, trying to parse out the meaning from the mess of sounds.

Apparently this is not the correct answer to the tall man’s question. He grabs a handful of Bucky’s hair – _sucks to be you, punk, ain’t washed it since last month_ – and jerks his head back. Bucky instinctively twists, trying to throw a decent punch at fuckin’ Raggedy Vladimir Putin here, and the guy cracks him across the face with the butt of his rifle.

A white-hot flare of pain, and for a second, everything goes quiet inside his head, soft and sharp, because this is familiar territory.

The Asset straightens up, and in one fluid movement snaps his fist upwards into the taller man’s jaw, seizes the front of his jacket, and slings him bodily into the other two. One of them goes down under his weight. The other stumbles, and the Asset is on him before he regains balance. He knocks the pistol from the kid’s hands. The third soldier has gotten up onto his hands and knees, so the Asset aims a kick at his head and knocks him back down again. The kid has pulled a knife from his belt; the Asset snaps his wrist, catches the knife, and cuts his throat. He tosses the body to one side.

The third soldier is on his knees again, a gun in his shaking hands, his eyes cartoon-wide, his mouth slack. Military training unlikely. Low risk. He pulls the trigger, but the gun stalls, clicking uselessly in his hands. The Asset gets a hand into his hair, yanks his head back, and cuts his throat too. The knife is a Gerber, made for tendons and gristle, but severing the man’s artery still takes five seconds of sawing back and forth. Assessment: piece of shit. The Asset tosses it aside.

The first man, the leader, is slumped on his side, trying to lever himself up, a dazed look in his eyes. When the Asset turns to look at him, he stammers a broken something in Ukrainian. Irrelevant. Without looking away, the Asset crouches, takes a pistol from one of the others – SIG Sauer, police origin likely – and shoots him in the head. The man’s body crumples.

After the sharp _crack_ of the gun, the forest is deathly quiet; the only sound is the youngest of the three, the kid, taking his last wet, rattling breaths.

Bucky crouches and looks blankly at the dead man’s face.

His right hand is shaking.

The blood is steaming as it soaks into the snow. He can taste it in the back of his throat. Thick. Familiar.

Bucky tries to take a breath, and can’t. 

The dead man is middle-aged, slightly overweight. Military training pretty fuckin’ unlikely. Wedding ring on one finger. Clean-shaven, balding. His broken jaw looks awkward under the skin, blood and fragments of broken teeth dripping slowly from one side of his slack and twisted mouth. The bullet hole in the centre of his forehead is a neat pinprick. Bucky knows from experience that the back of his head will be porridge. The exit wounds are always worse.

He straightens up, then hunches in on himself, trying to stop the uncontrollable shaking. He’s taking ragged gasps of the rancid air, going light-headed with it, ears full of white noises, and – _malfunction_ – and he’s blind with it, over and over again like a fuckin’ flicker book, like a zoetrope, the image of a shattered skull flashing in front of his eyes, the blood, the wet, greyish scraps of brain tissue, the matted hair, 1949, 1953, 1976, 2003, Moscow Kandahar Tehran BerlinBelfastShanghaiKabuljesusfuckjesus _fuck-_

He turns sharply and half falls against the car, keeping his eyes away from the other bodies – yanks the door open – crumples inside. Sits, gulping at the air, something dangerously close to sobs bubbling at the back of his throat.

Minutes pass. Finally, Bucky takes a slow, shuddering breath. With practised movements, he jolts the car back to life. He catches a glimpse of the Abnormal Occurrence in the mirror – it’s sleeping on the back seat, apparently completely unperturbed. Assessment: _what the fuck is wrong with this cat._

They pass through more forest, through the empty streets of Dolzhans’kyi. There’s another roadblock two miles from the border, staffed by real soldiers this time. The Asset answers their questions in clipped, perfect Russian, and they let him through without comment.

The cold laps at his insides like floodwater, like nausea, unstable but present, always present. This is familiar territory. Slipping into Russia is easy, the border lost in the snow and the darkness outside.

He keeps driving, metal hand steady on the steering wheel.

This is familiar territory.


	4. interlude: Moscow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit guys, I'm so sorry for uploading a repeat by accident! My brain is totally fried just now. Here is the real chapter, thanks for your patience and your kind comments <3

****

Sam Wilson likes to consider himself an open-minded kinda guy. He’s travelled pretty far – in the physical sense, yeah, but if you want to get all _deep_ , that’s not the only way he’s come far, you know? C’mon, little kid in the urban badlands, single mom on food stamps, turns into one of the US army’s top guys in the sky, turns into a trauma counsellor, turns into _a goddamn Avenger_ – that’s a _journey_ , man. And someone who’s been on that kind of journey just doesn’t make sweeping generalisations about people or places.

That being said, Sam Wilson would like whoever’s listening to know that Captain America is an asshole, and that Russia is freaking weird.

“…when we find him – if, if we find him –“ Captain Asshole is saying “- we can’t go in all guns blazing. We have to give him a chance.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that.”

Steve makes doe eyes at him.

“Look, Steve,” Sam sighs. “I get it. Your friend’s in there somewhere, and you want to save him. But – sometimes…” He looks down at his plate for inspiration, and wishes he hadn’t. Meat jelly should be illegal. _Russians, man._ “Trauma can make people real unpredictable, sometimes. Add that to seventy years of HYDRA brainwashing, and…”

 _Go on,_ Steve’s ridiculous doe eyes seem to say.

“…and you have to realise that your buddy might not react well to seeing you. You know, in a homicidal way.”

Steve sighs and looks down at the grimy tabletop. “I just can’t, Sam.”

“I thought you’d say that too. Listen -” He waits until Steve looks up before continuing. “Okay. We give him a chance. Just you and your Soviet boyfriend. But I can’t make any promises if he goes all Terminator on your ass.”

“Thanks.”

For a moment the two of them sit in companionable silence. Steve is peering out through the café window at the Moscow streets, looking as inconspicuous as a 6’2” chunk of pure America can in Russia, and Sam is watching Steve.

 _Bucky, come back to me_. _Bucky. Why don’t you love me anymore. Why did you shoot me three times. Buckyyyyy._ He thinks it as hard as he can, singing it inside his head, but there’s not much venom in it. Shit, it’s hard enough when your best friend dies outright.

“Thanks for coming in, Sam,” Steve says suddenly. He’s got that look on his face – the one that makes him look twelve years old, all wide blue eyes, almost painfully sincere. “I, uh, I really appreciate it.”

Hard to keep up a sarcastic inner monologue when Captain America gives you that look. Sam clasps his hands around his coffee cup.

“Look, man, don’t worry about it. I told you I’d help. You need someone who hasn’t got their own agenda working with you on this one.”

“You got that right.”

“So, who’s Natasha working for this time?”

Steve takes a gulp of coffee. “I don’t know. She didn’t say. If she’s going after Buck, it might be the Russians again. But I, uh, I don’t think it’s for real. She wouldn’t – I mean – Nat’s my friend, but she wouldn’t – when it comes to her work –“

Sam takes pity on him. “She wouldn’t compromise a real mission like that.”

“Yeah. It could be deep cover, spying on the people she’s meant to be spying for. Nat likes that kind of thing.”

“You think a Russian agent is double-crossing them, and you wanna talk about it in a suspicious café in the middle of Moscow?” Sam says, raising his eyebrows. “You’d better hope they don’t have you bugged, man, or that’s her cover busted.”

Steve’s eyes widen cartoonishly and his mouth drops open in horror. When Sam’s poker face breaks into a wide grin, he rolls his eyes.

“Shit, man, did you really think the KGB had bugged your coffee cup?” Sam snorts. “They’re never gonna make a spy of you.”

“Good.”

There’s a long silence then, the two of them looking idly out into the gloomy street. The snow has let off for now, but the heavy sky is threatening more. Two women walking past turn to stare at them, then giggle to each other – maybe because the two of them look like gay husbands on the most ill-advised honeymoon ever, or maybe just out of good, old-fashioned racism, because there’s plenty of that in Moscow. Sam flips them off. When they’re not looking, though. He’s nice like that.

As if he read Sam’s mind, Steve looks up from his coffee, and says – “Sam, you don’t…you don’t have a problem with guys who are, uh, queer, do you?”

Sam nearly spits out his coffee. Steve’s expression goes from painfully sincere to mildly panicked, and he scrabbles about for words – “If, uh, if I’m – allowed – to use that word, I know it’s-“

“You can use it if it applies to you,” Sam says, gaping at a rapidly flushing Steve. “Dude. Are you about to tell me something?”

“No! No, I – it’s about _Bucky_.”

“And you’re _sure_ you’re not about to tell me something.”

Steve ignores him, and says – “People always act like I don’t know people who – do that – exist, like we didn’t have them in the thirties, but we did.” The words come in a rush, as if he’s been storing them up for a while and can’t get them out quick enough. “We had _lots_ of ‘em in Brooklyn, New York was famous for it, lots of – hangouts and underground bars and salons and parlours, and sometimes. Buck. He went there. As well as the regular places, he went there.” He glances up to meet Sam’s eyes, gauging his reaction. “I saw him kissing this guy once – soldier’s uniform, a guy almost my size.”

“Okay, so, your buddy liked guys.” Sam says. Then – “Did you ever talk about it?”

Steve shakes his head. The words come a little easier now. “The way people talked about it, Sam, it wasn’t – it wasn’t good. They always said things – things like _queer_ and _sissy_ and – like it was so dirty and so perverted, and I didn’t – I didn’t know any other way to talk about – people like that. And he’s my friend.”

Sam takes a sip of coffee, keeping his face neutral. He’s done enough counselling work to know when there’s more to come.

“I know you must wonder about – about me. And about Buck,” he says, very quietly. “Tony makes jokes about it all the time. And, uh, the truth is I don’t know. It wasn’t an option, back then. With girls as well, I mean. It wasn’t an option for a guy like me.” He looks up to meet Sam’s eyes and says – “Buck’s meant more to me than anyone else in my life, Sam. I don’t know what that makes us.”

Sam feels a rush of warmth for Steve then, for this goddamn 95-year-old kid who’s willing to lay his soul out like this.

“Steve,” he says. “Dude. It doesn’t have to be one thing or the other, okay? Let’s just work on getting him home first.”


	5. Volgograd, Russia

The body is bent at a horribly unnatural angle. It has fallen across a chair and now lies slumped across it, hips jutting outwards, feet and head on the ground, arms thrown back. The bullet hole is a neat full-stop above its eye socket.

Steve knows better than to look at the exit wound.

One of the guy’s wrists looks strange. It’s swollen, but lumpy, as if the bones inside have been crushed to pieces. There are thick, livid bruises on the skin. Finger marks.

Tentatively, Steve reaches out – he knows it’s necessary, but he hates this part, always has -  takes the wrist that isn’t broken, and tries to move it. It resists. The body is as stiff as frozen meat.

Rigor mortis can set in as early as four hours after death, and fades after seventy-two. Bucky was here less than three days ago.

Steve straightens up and looks around, breath fogging the air. The group had clearly operated from just one corner of the warehouse; easier to keep warm, and easier to defend. There are upturned crates, an old oil drum with a thick layer of ash at the bottom. A couple of camping lanterns. Battered tin mugs.

A little further along the wall is a pile of cardboard boxes that are somehow both charred and soaking wet. Steve opens one of them, pinching his lips together against the acrid smell. He sorts through a few inches of blackened sludge before finding something white-ish and powdery, most of it clumped together in discoloured lumps.

Drugs trade, then.

The bodies lie wherever they’ve fallen, slumped against walls and splayed out on the concrete floor. Whoever killed them ( _who are you kidding, pal, you know who killed them_ ) has made no attempt to cover his tracks.

Through the holes in the walls, Steve can see the surrounding countryside; the sleet is falling so thickly the air is almost opaque.

His hand goes to his earpiece. “He’s long gone, Sam. You can come in.”

-

Bucky – or the Winter Soldier, or whoever he is – is tracing a line across the south-west corner of Russia. He never bothers to hide the kills, and doesn’t seem to be excessively picky about who he targets. This is militia heartland, ridden through with protection rackets, small-time drug lords, neo-Nazis, you name it.

Sam has started plotting the locations of potential targets – sex offenders, terror cells, he isn’t short of choice – on the road ahead. If they track down the hideouts one by one, sooner or later they always end up finding Bucky’s footprints.

There’s a sick, old feeling lodged in Steve’s chest. The afterimages of the bodies linger behind his eyes, a pile that gets bigger and bigger with every passing day.

-

The Abnormal Occurrence licks its paw, seemingly unconcerned with the carnage around it.

The Asset twists. A punch meant for his abdomen catches his metal shoulder instead. He snaps back from the waist, knocking his opponent – a kid who can’t be more than twenty; shaved head; swastikas tattooed on his middle fingers – to the ground. The Asset follows him. Takes hold of his chin. Snaps his neck.

He picks up the kid’s gun from where it has fallen, checks it, and shoots the last two gang members in quick succession. The Abnormal Occurrence jumps at the sudden noise, and gives him a resentful look, ears flattened back against its head.

“Sorry,” the Asset says. The Asset is not sure why he says this.

He surveys the gang’s weapons – Makarov pistols (x3), an old Kalashnikov (x1, looks like hammered shit), hunting knives (various), and a tray (x1) containing an assortment of bloodied scalpels, pliers, human teeth, kebab skewers and crowbars. Amateurs.

There is nothing here that will be more efficient than the Glock the Asset removed from his last location (Lubyanoy; militia; six kills). He scans the room once more, face blank, and leaves.

-

They’re fifty miles out of Volgograd when they finally get lucky, trudging through what feels like miles of old farmland. Broken fences jut up out of the muddied snow; a few barns are just about visible through the horrendous weather, their roofs rotten and falling in on themselves. Beyond them a couple of rusty silos loom.

Steve is crouching to examine the contents of an old crate (hint: snow and mud) when he catches a panicked shout, distant, quickly whipped away by the wind. One glance at Sam confirms that he heard it too. Without a word, Steve straightens, and they head for the barns, pace increasing.

“You know I’m coming in with you,” Sam says as they march.

“Sam-“

“Don’t give me that goddamn _soulful_ look, Steve.” The shouts increase as they draw closer, and they break into a jog. “Your buddy’s gone off the deep end big time. Like hell am I letting you try and talk down a freaking _cyborg soviet vigilante-_ “

Steve skids to a halt in front of Sam, who runs straight into him with a sharp _ouch_ (it’s like running into a really patriotic granite wall, okay, give a guy a break), and takes him by the shoulders. The soulful look intensifies by about 300%.

“Just give me a chance to talk to him, Sam, please – just give me one conversation.”

Sam gives him a look that is dubious at best.

Steve bites back his distaste and says, “I’ll take a gun.”

The next sound to come from the barns is a shriek. Sam swears, pulls out one of the _totally legal_ handguns that the US military definitely wouldn’t want back anyway okay – and says “Three minutes.”

Steve nods his thanks, and tears off. The biggest of the buildings seems to be the source of the screams, a big old concrete monstrosity with a corrugated iron roof. The door has already been kicked in and is hanging mournfully from one hinge. He bursts through it to find Bucky mid-fight, trading vicious blows with a heavily tattooed guy in combat gear. Three or four other bodies lie sprawled across the concrete floor. One is twitching faintly.

Buck isn’t wearing the mask, and Steve doesn’t know whether that makes it better or worse. He’s white as a sheet, his lips pale, a livid bruise stretching across his nose and cheekbone. His face is blank.

He looks up, catches sight of Steve, and his eyes go wide for a fraction of a second. It’s just long enough for the other man to jab the short knife in his hand into Bucky’s side. Buck’s expression suddenly twists into something enraged, something terrifying. He slams his fist into the guy’s stomach hard enough to knock him backwards, leans slightly to – Steve’s stomach lurches - take a gun from the ground, and shoots the man in the head.

For a moment, the silence is deafening.

The twitching body emits a gasping moan. Unconcerned, Bucky shoots again, and the body goes still. His eyes never leave Steve’s face.

Steve’s heart is pounding in his throat. He scans Bucky’s face desperately, taking in the sickly pallor of it, the shadows under the eyes, looking for something – some indication, some flicker to let him know whether this is going to be a conversation or a grudge match.

The silence stretches on. Steve remembers Sam’s time limit.

“Who am I talking to just now?” he says. “James Barnes, or the Winter Soldier?”

Bucky licks his lips. “Irrelevant.” His voice is a rasp.

There’s a soft thump, and Steve notices the ugliest cat he’s ever seen making its way towards him. It’s one-eyed, scabby and mangy, and its survival instincts are clearly lacking because it is currently twining itself around Bucky’s combat boots, purring. Without breaking eye contact, Buck crouches slightly, and methodically runs one hand along the cat’s back.

The movement makes Steve jump despite himself. Buck notices.

“Un-“ His voice fails halfway through the word. He scowls, swallows, tries again. “Unnecessary. You are not a target.”

Steve opens his mouth to speak, but just nods. He takes a very tentative step forward. “Who is the target then, pal?”

“Various.” The cat decides it has had enough of petting and bites Bucky’s hand. Bucky doesn’t seem bothered. He stills and just looks at Steve, eerily motionless, face blank.

“Are you heading to Volgograd?” No response. “Why? What’s in Volgograd, Buck?”

One half of Bucky’s face twitches, and then-

“Why do you keep calling me that.” The intonation is flat, more statement than question.

“Because it’s your name. Or was.”

 “History of the body is irrelevant.” A weird, jerky tremor goes through his right hand, the flesh one. It doesn’t seem to be voluntary. The metal hand is steady, still holding the gun.

Steve swallows. “Okay,” he says. Pauses. “Do you – remember me?”

Bucky considers. The cat sits at his feet, uninterested. “You’re Steve.”

“Did you read about that in a museum, or do you remember?”

“Remember. Sometimes. I.” Bucky’s face twitches again, more violently this time. “Recall – is compromised.”

“Buck.” Steve can feel that he’s doing what Tony calls his Littlefoot face (and yes, he does get the reference, thank you, he knows about Google). He takes an abortive step forward, but Bucky jerks back as if stung, so he stops, makes placating _okay, okay_ gestures.

“I just want to talk to you, Bu- pal. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Unverified,” Bucky says. His hand is shaking more distinctly now, his breathing shallow, and Steve wonders what kind of adrenaline is thundering through him. He remembers the gun in his hand, glances at it. Places it on the floor. Straightens up.

“What are you doing this for?” he asks, gesturing towards the bodies. Bucky’s eyes follow his hand, then snap back to his face. “You’ve taken out half the criminals in Russia this past week.”

“Inaccurate.” Steve inches closer. If Bucky notices, he doesn’t show it. Closer up, his eyes are ghastly, glazed and bloodshot. His lips are cracked and peeling. Steve aches to put a hand on his shoulder.

“They are acceptable targets.” Bucky says abruptly. “And they are – en route.”

“En route to where?”

At that, a spasm runs all the way through Bucky’s body. “Malfunction” he says curtly.

“C’mon, pal, why are you doing this?” Steve takes another step. Bucky’s whole body judders again, but he doesn’t move. His chest is heaving. “Buck, I get that these are – aren’t great people, but we – we don’t do this, you should leave this to the police-“

“Police are – ineffective” – faintly – “This. This. This is.”

“This isn’t your _job_ , Buck-“

The eyes that stare back at him are horribly empty. “Yes. It – is.”

Steve’s heart fucking aches. “Buck, I-“ – but Bucky must suddenly realise how close he’s let Steve come, because he jolts back in alarm, eyes going cartoonishly wide, stumbles on one of the crates – Steve lurches forward, grabs him, and Bucky freezes. He can feel the muscles of his shoulder, tense and shaking, and Steve can practically see the BSOD going on in Bucky’s head, the conflicting signals that tell him to attack, that tell him to run.

Buck’s eyes shift, looking at something just over Steve’s shoulder, and he just has time to look back and catch a glimpse of Sam, coming in with his hands raised placatingly.

 _Shit_ , Steve thinks.

“Okay, buddy, there’s no need to panic-“ Sam is saying, but Bucky’s eyes have gone wild, an animal about to bolt. He twists, and jabs his elbow into Steve’s stomach.

Sam gives a shout and leaps forward, but the gun is still in Bucky’s hand. Steve throws himself at Bucky just as he fires, receives a vicious crack across the face for his trouble - with the metal arm this time – and finds himself lying in a dazed pile, vision gone white and hazy. He faintly sees Bucky clamber up the wall, and disappear through a sizeable hole in the roof.

When he’s able, Steve crawls over to Sam, head ringing.

“Sam, I’m so sorry – are you –“

“Cool it, Captain Tactical Reasoning.” Sam has pushed himself up onto his elbow and is looking severely displeased, but unhurt. “You knocked him off-balance, s’just a graze.” He looks at Steve, and his expression softens. “Think you might have a concussion, though.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

There’s a yowl, and a loud scrabbling noise. They both pause to watch the cat awkwardly clawing its way up the wall. It gets halfway up, slips, and tumbles to the floor with a look of wild panic. It pauses, gives the wall a haughty one-eyed glare, and then trots past to the main door, sparing neither of America’s foremost superheroes so much as a second glance.

“I think your dude’s got some issues.” Sam says.

-

The Asset moves at speed through Kovylkin, Bystryy and Volotskiy. During this time, secondary targets are ignored in favour of increased speed. Rations are reduced to significantly below what is required for basic physical maintenance, but this is not relevant. Encounters with Steve ( _Rogers/alias Captain America/2016/failed kill mission/extremely high risk_ ) generate extremely strong conflicting urges and bodily distress. Encounters with Steve are to be avoided.

The Asset steals cars, leaves them in rivers and woods to avoid detection.

The Asset knows where it is going.

-

By Oblivskaya, the body requires rest, so the Asset allows itself five hours sleep in the town bus shelter.

It wakes to find a grinning adolescent ( _Caucasian/clothes:expensive/age:(estimated):18-19/low risk_ ) attempting to set its facial hair on fire with a cigarette lighter as two others watch. When the Asset begins to sit up, they explode in a fit of giggles. The Asset seizes the leader’s wrist

“That’s real fuckin’ impolite of you, sweetheart,” the Asset says. The Asset does not know why it says this.

The Asset tightens its fingers around the kid’s wrist until the bones break.

-

The Asset pauses by the banks of the river Chir to smoke a cigarette, bowing to the inexplicable voice inside its head that orders it to sacrifice speed for _this one small pleasure, pal, c’mon, no-one’s gonna give you a prize for bein’ a fuckin’ martyr._

-

There are no opportunities to sleep in the countryside between Karpovka and Biryuzovyy due to inclement weather and lack of shelter. Hypothermia and/or death risk: high. Assessment: not conducive to mission success.

Gusts of wind begin to sound like voices. Twisted figures appear in the rippling shadows of the trees. The Abnormal Occurrence does not seem to be aware of these figures. Balance and coordination are compromised.

The Asset feels an extremely strong craving for black coffee. No sugar, because only punks take their coffee with sugar. Source of information: unknown.

The Asset keeps walking. It knows where it is going. It knows where it is going.

-

Location (Nilskaya, Lenina Prospekt 86) is reached two days later. From the outside the building looks abandoned, but not derelict. The windows are dirty, but not boarded up. The walls and roof remain structurally sound. The Asset knows that this is calculated to be of least interest to vagrants, the authorities and curious middle-class adolescents.

The Asset enters the block of flats opposite to observe the location.

-

That night, the Asset breaks into the public pool at Polymteh and uses the showers there to wash and shave. Prior appearance not congruent with full functionality. It removes its extra t-shirts, the hat it had found in the street in Kiev, the heavy gloves. Discards them. Unnecessary. The face that stares back from the mirror is a bruised, grey and white mess.

-

There is a homeless man begging outside the location. His mouth twitches when he sees the Asset.

The Asset leans down as if talking to him, but says nothing. This is in line with protocol. The homeless man pulls a cheap phone from the folds of his sleeping bag and dials; when someone at the other end picks up, he says nothing, simply holding the phone to his ear in silence. After a few seconds, he hangs up.

“You can go in.”

The Asset does not acknowledge this. It straightens up and heads up the old concrete steps.

The front door is closed, a heavy-duty combination lock keeping the bolt shut. The Asset crushes it in his left hand.

When it pushes its way inside, the Asset is met with a row of uniformed men pointing guns in its direction. Each man wears a small pin bearing HYDRA’s logo on his lapel.

The Asset stills, face blank.

One of the men steps forward – the Asset’s brain spits out a flurry of information – Ivchenko, Vasiliy, authorised agent for Volgograd Oblast, assigned officer 1993-5, seven kills recorded-

“Soldier?”

The Asset’s gaze is unwavering. “Ready to comply.”

Ivchenko nods curtly and gestures to the soldiers, who stand down. “You’ve been gone a while. I hope you have an adequate excuse.”

There’s a creak, and a faint mewl as the Abnormal Occurrence noses open the door and pads inside. It gives the armed men an affronted look, as if to say _and what do you think you’re doing here?_

Ivchenko catches sight of the cat and makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat.

“All these strays.” He gestures to one of the soldiers, who takes aim, and shoots.

The Abnormal Occurrence is thrown back by the force of the bullet, landing in a heap at the base of the door. The gunman is no sniper – the bullet has caught the cat in the abdomen, ripping its stomach open. A slow, agonising death.

The Asset looks blankly at the small, shaking body, and momentarily sees blood rising up the insides of the walls. Like warmth. Like – spring. It keeps its face neutral. No sign of malfunction apparent.

“You will need to be wiped, of course,” Ivchenko keeps talking as if nothing has happened. He goes over to the Abnormal Occurrence, and nudges the body with the toe of his boot. “You’ve been out of range for far too long. Some retraining might be required, if any malfunction is evident.” He gives the Asset a searching look. The Asset does not respond. This is in line with protocol.

Eventually, Ivchenko gives a satisfied nod.

When he and his men lead the Asset through the empty foyer and down to the basement, the Asset complies.

It knows where it is going, and what it must do.

-

Around sixteen hours later, two men approach the location. One is blond, tall, muscular, and slightly concussed. The other is thoroughly sick of Russia and all its bullshit. There is no homeless man outside the location, but the two men don’t know that this is abnormal.

In the basement they find the remains of the skeleton HYDRA cell that had been continuing operations there. The walls are riddled with fresh bullet holes and most of the furniture has been either smashed or hurled across the room, but the cell’s computer drives, communications devices and paperwork have been set out neatly on the one desk that still has all its legs.

In the next room along, they find a black dentist’s style chair with a cage-like contraption where the patient’s head should go. The wires and fittings of the contraption have been torn out so abruptly that in places the metal has been wrenched out of shape.

Three guns, a ragged black combat jacket and a scrap of paper have been placed on the seat of the chair. Someone has written _mission complete_ on the scrap of paper.

The blond man stands and stares at the chair for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for taking so long to post this! Ended up staying in France longer than expected, and neither wifi nor free time were really a thing. Thanks for all the kudos and lovely comments. Sorry about the cat. 
> 
> Also, am just about to update the chapter before last to remove a few clunky sentences, noticed a few that needed polishing. 
> 
> P.S. If you think I'm being harsh on Russia, wait until you see how much I romanticise Iran


	6. Nakhchivan

Steve can remember the first time he killed a man – of course he can, he’s _Steve_ – not that there’s much to remember.

It was nothing, really – over in a second. Behind enemy lines at Azzano, a masked man leaping from an open hatch, a sudden surge of adrenaline, and he’d tossed the shield without thinking about it. Hadn’t had time to think about it, because there were more hatches and more masked men, and he’d had to run after the shield and throw it again.

It wasn’t until later that he’d realised. They’d been sitting round a sticky table, all of them warm and safe victorious and _okay_ , Bucky white-faced but trying, and Steve had suddenly thought _so, that was it, huh_.

And sure, he’d moralised and wrung his hands as much as he had time to. But they were at war and Bucky was there and really? He hadn’t given it a second thought. Hadn’t had _time_.

Steve can also remember a surprise attack two weeks later, in the foothills of the Alps. A HYDRA squad bursting out of the undergrowth and catching them at close range, bullets slamming into the trees. And Steve had been halfway through cleaning the insides of his gun, so he was bare-handed, and there was this guy coming at him with a knife in his hands, and, and. And then this man, this human being, was twisting in his hands like a fish on a hook, choking, saying in his German-accented English _please no please_ , his face turning purple because Steve hadn’t learnt how to break someone’s neck yet, had never known that was something he needed to learn-

That night, Dugan and Jones are joking around by the fire, just like normal. Bucky’s sitting by him, tossing in the odd wisecrack comment, sharpening his knives, just like normal. And Steve’s sitting there with this echoing hollow inside him, a well so deep it has no bottom.

Later, sitting in the tent, he says – “Buck” – pauses. “Do you – remember the first time you killed someone?”

There’s a long silence before Buck replies, his face shadowed in the half-light. “Steve, you gotta forget about it, champ,” he says. “Thinking like that’ll drive you crazy.”

-

The walls of the squat are shaking.

No. Inaccurate. Inaccurate. _He’s_ shaking, halfway to falling apart with it, a bone-deep, nauseous juddering spreading from his insides out. The Asset ( _Barnes, James Buchanan/Bucky/high risk/high risk/high risk_ ) hunches into a ball with a low moan, pressing his hands against his head.

There are – acceptable targets. Here. He knows -

Heydər Əliyev Alley 76 ( _home address of Tayy_ _ıp Gökçen/military/genocide/acceptable target_ )

Dairavi Boulevard 12 ( _filming and distribution point/child sex ring/seven employees/acceptable target_ )

Unnamed road, 39.173347/45.423647 ( _drop-off point/Russia-Afghanistan arms trade/six guards/acceptable target_ )

\- but there’s also a voice telling him that there are _no_ acceptable targets – that – it’s not his job –

 _Then what is my job?_ the Asset thinks desperately, digging his fingers into his temples, forehead half an inch away from the concrete floor. _What’s my fucking job, if it isn’t that?_

He thinks of – a beating. Savage. Punishment. Severe malfunctions are against protocol – pose a risk to mission integrity – must be discouraged. Like. Like training a dog. He thinks of electricity that spreads through his brain like – fire – leaving nothing behind – arching against the chair in agony as he disappears. That was - easier. Would be.

-

Bucky cannot remember the first time he killed a man. Bucky can’t remember much of anything just now.

If he could, he might remember a German kid in Ypres with brown hair and a patchy moustache, sprawled in the stinking mud, a vivid line of blood trickling from the corner of his open mouth. There was water seeping into his boots.

He might remember sneaking into the village that night with the handful of others who were brave enough to risk ten shades of hell for the small relief it offered. He might remember drinking and drinking and drinking – as if he had anything else to do with his wages – singing with gusto, laughing louder than anyone else. Dancing with this beautiful girl who had an oval face and a glowing smile; twirling her under his arm and flirting in his terrible schoolboy French as he walked her home through the rainy streets. Fucking her long and slow, his tongue lazy in her mouth, and afterwards sitting naked on the edge of her bed with a smoke in his hands, wondering why his chest felt so hot and heavy.

He might remember slipping back into his rank, filthy uniform and sneaking out with a kiss, throwing a wink and a cheery wave over his shoulder, every inch the handsome American soldier – off to fight the Nazis, off to kill more clueless Berlin teenagers, barely old enough to sprout a fuckin’ moustache. Pausing in the dark and fighting a sudden, inexplicable urge to cry.

-

The person sitting by the river hasn’t moved for almost half an hour now, except to twitch and shake, and Aynur figures that means they’re open to conversation. She’s been sitting on the low wall around the council’s newest plot of green land the whole time, her back to the skinny saplings, her eyes on the figure’s ragged jacket and hunched, and thinks she’s seen enough. Here is someone sorely in need of a few kind words.

Aynur sidles down the bank, fishing in her pocket for cigarettes – never hurts to have a token of goodwill – and heads towards the hunched figure. She doesn’t bother to walk quietly, not that you can on the gravel, but when she taps the guy on the shoulder, he nearly jumps out of his skin in surprise.

Some people deal better with homelessness than others – Aynur doesn’t like to make generalisations about who those people are, because it’s that kind of simplistic rubbish that stops everyone seeing them as _people_ , you know, rather than a great homogenous mass. Homeless People. She gets sick of hearing politicians talking about Homeless People as if they’re an intrusive new breed of bird.

But Aynur doesn’t need to make generalisations about people who cope well with homelessness to know that this guy isn’t one of them. His face is dirty and bruised and pale, and he has the shaky, dazed look of someone who hasn’t eaten for a while and doesn’t intend to for a while more. Wide, glazed eyes scan Aynur’s face without really seeing her.

She takes her hand from the guy’s shoulder and makes a placating gesture, both hands in the air. Then she holds out the box of cigarettes. They’re shitty knockoffs, but the suspicious Isfahani who sells them outside the shelter likes Aynur ‘cause he thinks she trades insults like an Istanbul bazaari (and, hey, also maybe because she has great tits. She’s been around, okay, she knows when a guy’s looking) and gives her money off, and, well – beggars can’t be choosers.

The man’s eyes flick up to her face, a little more in focus now. He tentatively takes a cigarette, and then the lighter she offers him. It takes him a few tries to get it lit, as if he’s not used to it. Aynur takes the lighter back when he’s done and lights a cigarette for herself.

“Siz yaxşısınız?” she says. The stranger looks blank. Of course – most of Nakhchivan’s homeless aren’t Azeri. This place takes care of its own.

“Դուք խոսում են հայերեն?” The man shakes his head slightly, apologetic twist to his mouth. Huh.

“русский?”

At this the man starts. “Yes,” he replies, a raspy voice. “No. I. It’s complicated.”

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Aynur says. She has to dredge the Russian up from deep, deep down, but the words are there. “It is complicated for many. Everyone, they have a complicated story, no?”

The stranger nods curtly, taking a long drag on the cigarette, eyes on the river. Not wanting to be pressed. Okay. Aynur can understand that. Lots of people don’t want to be pressed.

“This is the river Aras,” she says instead. “Samad Behrangi drowned in it. You know him?”

The stranger shakes his head. His hair is long, a tangled mess that reaches down to his shoulders. Aynur thinks it could quite suit him, if he washed it.

“He was a writer, a teacher,” she says, taking a drag. “Iranians like to claim him, but he was Azeri, a very proud Azeri. Some people say they killed him, their special police. Others think it was the Soviets. But I say it doesn’t matter. Persians, Soviets, Azeris, Armenians” – she waves her hands to make her point – “it doesn’t matter. But you can’t say that too loudly. Not here.”

The stranger says nothing, just sits and smokes, but he looks a little steadier.

“Behrangi wrote fairy tales.” Aynur says. “And realism, sometimes. His most famous is _Mahi Siyah Kuchulu_ , the Little Black Fish, you know it? No? My mother, she used to tell me all the time. She was a proud Azeri also.” The stranger still says nothing, but he hasn’t told Aynur to stop, so she takes a gulp of smoke, and continues. “He wrote a lot about…how do you say it? Curiousness? Freedom and kindness, also.”

The man takes a slow drag on his cigarette. “Sounds like horseshit to me.”

Aynur laughs. “He wrote a lot of stories about poverty and filth too, my friend.”

-

A fragment that Steve and Bucky both think the other has forgotten:

They’re in the middle of nowhere, still in Italy, under attack from a rogue HYDRA cell – one of the first they’d survived with the Howlies, the group still new, still finding its feet. One of the black-clad soldiers shoves Bucky backwards and raises his gun, and Bucky’s mind fills with that blank terror that always finds him in bomb shelters and gas attacks and hopeless shootouts.

But the bullet he was expecting never comes. Instead, a hand grasps his arm and hauls him upright, and there’s Steve – so much stronger, so much more solid than he was before. Suddenly, looking at him feels like looking straight into the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I totally fetishise smoking in everything I write ever, which is Bad because smoking is Not Sexy* and Will Kill You
> 
> 2\. All the addresses in this story are random and have no bearing on reality, please don't sue me and/or go on any vigilante missions
> 
> 3\. I didn't have the energy to do more than google translate the languagey bits in this chapter, I'm very sorry if it's your native language and I've butchered it
> 
> (*except when Sebastian Stan does it. Google it, I'm not kidding)


	7. Tabriz, Iran

“Sir, the rules are completely clear, American citizens are not eligible for visa on arrival.”

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I didn’t know –“

Steve feels too big for the chair he’s sitting in. The woman sitting across the desk from him seems unconcerned.

“That is not my fault.”

“I thought maybe because it was a UN-verified aircraft-“

“Having a UN-verified aircraft does not allow you free entry to any country you choose,” the woman tells him. “Are you an ambassador? Are you a special envoy?”

“I –“

“No, you are not. And even if you were, business visas still have to be applied for six weeks in advance and verified by the MFA in Tehran.” She quirks one perfect eyebrow at him. “And ordinary American citizens, like the British, must be on a guided tour when visiting Iran. Who was your tour booked with?”

“I – I’m very sorry ma’am, I didn’t know I needed-“

There’s a tap at the door, and a uniformed man sticks his head into the office. There’s a quick exchange in Persian, and then the woman dismisses him with a flick of her hand. She turns back to Steve.

“If you had checked the MFA website, you would know that Americans need to travel with a tour.”

“But the MFA website is in Farsi,” Steve says helplessly as the woman begins to scrawl something on the form in front of her.

“Yes, it is,” she replies, without looking up. With a sigh, she sets down her pen, stamps the bottom of the form, and hands it to him. “Go through the doors under the stairs to the left and give this to the man at the desk. It’s your departure form. It’s in Farsi too.”

-

Rain whispers down through the leaves. His clothes are damp with it, despite his best efforts to keep them dry. The air smells of wet earth and distant smoke.

He leans his head back against the stone of the statue in the middle of the square, and lets out a long breath, his eyes skimming over the empty street. Bins. Storefronts. Couple of bus stops. Just like anywhere else.

When the dark really starts setting in, the figure in the square stiffly pulls himself to his feet. The days might be getting milder, but the nights are still bitingly cold.

-

There’s a mosque down one of the alleyways leading off the square. It’s a small one, hardly a tourist attraction – a small, blocky, white-tiled building with a neon sign glowing eerily above the door. The figure lurks in the alleyway for a while, watching the entrances, the windows. Assessment: safe enough.

It’s easy enough to break the bolt on the front door; the screws twist free of the rotten wood with barely a whisper of protest, land silently in the muddy gutter. No burglar alarm. He pushes the door open cautiously, peering into the darkness he finds inside.

The attic seems like the safest bet. The figure wedges open the trapdoor and swings himself up. By the dim light that filters in through the corridor, he peers at the stacked chairs, the rolled carpets, the piled boxes.

He doesn’t hear the shuffle of feet below until it’s too late. With a momentary flare of panic, he rounds on the trapdoor, bracing himself against it, prepared for the attack – and finds himself face-to-face with a slim, bearded man in the typical white robes of a small-time cleric.

“Salam, agha,” the man says. There is no malice in the smile on his face.

“Salam,” the Asset replies automatically.

 Then - _Shit,_ the Asset thinks. _Do I even speak Farsi?_

“Are you homeless, agha?” the man calls up.

 _That’s a yes on the Farsi_.

“Yes,” the Asset says cautiously. “Yes. Uh. Homeless. I am.”

The man moves a little closer, fumbles in the dark, and clicks on a lamp. The light shows him to be younger than he first appeared to be – despite the beard, he can’t be older than thirty.

“You don’t have to sleep in the attic, you know?” he says. “I can make up a bed for you in the storage room. It might not be luxurious, but it will be much more comfortable.”

The Asset considers.

“Just one thing, agha,” the man continues, a note of apology creeping into his voice. “The stray cats do sometimes sleep in there, too, I’m afraid; they get in through the back door and-“

The Asset swings himself down from the attic. He lands with a solid _thump_ , but the man doesn’t back away. Instead, his smile widens, and he inclines his head slightly.

“My name is Sohrab. What is yours, my friend?”

This sets off a roulette wheel in the Asset’s head – _Asset/soldier/Buck/Bucky/BarnesJamesBuchanan/Sergeant_ – he bites out “James” before it can spin out of control and swallow him.

“James.” Sohrab’s voice draws the name out, makes it gentle. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. If you like, tomorrow morning you can join me for breakfast. Just in the foyer through there – yes, that door, the green one.” He pauses. “Unfortunately our city doesn’t serve its homeless very well, but I know a group, if you are interested – homeless, like yourself. Good people. Good survivors. Great conversationalists. They spend most days in Azadi park, just north of here. Company is just as important as food and sleep, you know. If you like, I will tell you how to get there over breakfast. If you are gone before breakfast – well.” Sohrab shrugs ruefully. After a moment, he turns to the dim corridor, beckoning Bucky along with him.       

“But please, my friend,” he says over his shoulder. “Replacing locks is expensive. Next time just knock.”

-

“C’mon, last time I checked there was nothing wrong with your legs!”

“This stairwell is full of dust.”

Bucky’s alarmed face appears over the bannisters two flights up. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t think-“

Steve looks up to see him haloed in sunbeams, dust motes floating down through his hair. “S’fine Buck. I’m just smaller than you.”

Buck smiles, and disappears.

When Steve finally reaches the top, Buck is there waiting for him, grinning like a kid, holding the door to the roof open for him. Steve follows him out, blinking in the light, and smiling despite himself. Buck is already at the ledge, leaning forward. He pulls a scruffy old pair of binoculars from his pocket.

“Where’d you get those?”

“Took ‘em from my da’s toolbox,” Buck says carelessly, adjusting the focus. “What’s he gonna use them for, scoping out a bar?” For a moment, he scans the roof opposite, and then a lopsided grin illuminates his face. He gestures Steve over and presses the binoculars into his hands. “Far left corner.”

Steve peers through the grimy glass, twisting the focus, looking back and forth until – “Oh.” He squints, fiddles with the focus a bit more. “ _Oh_.”

“I know.”

“Buck, they’re _so tiny_.”

“I know, champ, figured I’d called one of ‘em Steve.”

“Ha ha.” Steve deadpans, but without much energy – he’s too busy following the chicks on the opposite roof.

“What are they, seagulls?”

“Yeah, ma and me have been coming to check on ‘em – here, gimme a go –“ Buck seizes the binoculars, and Steve blinks his eyes back into focus. On the opposite roof, he can just about see the three tiny puffs of grey podding about, stretching their tiny wings.

Buck is leaning forward, smiling, the sunlight catching his hair and the relaxed muscles of his back.

This is one of Steve’s favourite memories of him.

-

Bucky is staring from the window of a dusty and very unofficial-looking taxi, thinking nothing.

He’d woken to a crackly rendition of the call to prayer, cats dozing around him, the first hints of dawn glinting in the sky outside. Many people find it hard to connect to their spiritual side at sunrise, as Sohrab had wryly pointed out to him, so he didn’t have to wait long for morning prayers to finish – just enough time to take a piss and scrub the worst of the dirt from his hands and face. He found Sohrab through the third door he tried, seated on a rug with plates spread out in front of him, sedately feeding cheese to one of the cats.

Buck sat and at walnuts and crumbly cheese and bread and herbs as Sohrab chattered on about the town governor, the latest news from his mother and his wild Tehrani sister (“What a disastrous child, mashallah”), the cats, the mosque’s new carpets. When they were done, Sohrab had forced a bundle of crumpled notes into his hands and ushered him into what looked like a normal car, telling him to go to Azadi park, and ask for Farideh, but _not_ Hama, mind, Hama is a terrible trickster.

So now Buck’s sitting here with this driver, staring out through the dusty windscreen and thinking – and thinking –

Thinking what?

 _Mission objective?_ part of him queries. _Best not to think about that one too much just now, champ_ , another part responds.

They pass through winding streets just beginning to come to life – a glance at the clock tells him it’s before seven. BarnesJamesBuchanan/Asset/Bucky gives monosyllabic answers to the driver’s chatter until the guy gives up. He blankly watches kids kicking a ball about, women in chadors standing and chatting in doorways, or rushing to and fro with baskets under their arms.

When they pull up in front of the scruffy gate to Azadi park, it takes effort to jolt himself back to the present.

“How much?” he asks.

The driver – _45ish/married/not devout/below average height/low risk/Jesus fuck can’t you shut up for a second jeez_ – gives him a broad smile. “For you, my friend? It’s free. I’m your servant. I won’t take money from you.”

Buck scans his face for sarcasm, but doesn’t find any. “Okay,” he says, and opens the door.

“Ah! No, no, my friend, wait!” The driver leans across to grasp Buck’s arm, and Buck pauses, quashing his reflexive urge to snap the man’s neck. “That was _ta’arof_. I assumed, because you speak Persian, you knew…it’ll be 55,000 tomans.” He says it almost sheepishly, and seems surprised when Buck hands over the notes without comment.

“You speak Persian like an Iranian,” the driver says as he deftly flicks the money from one hand to the other, counting. “But you don’t know _ta’arof_. Where are you from? Are you Tajik? Afghan?”

“Yeah,” Buck says. Why not.

The driver nods, as if to say _thought so_. Satisfied with the money, he tucks it into his pocket and nods again, this time more decisively.

“ _Khodahafez_ , then.”

“ _Khodahafez_.” Buck says, and shuts the door.

-

Buck has too many favourite memories of Steve to count, or did before HYDRA burned and bled them out of him. Sharing a soda in summer, an old roof tile wedged under the window to keep it up, drinking cautiously, like all of it, the sun, the soda, everything, was gonna disappear any minute. The look on Steve’s face when he saw the stray kittens Buck’d lured in from the stairs, half-amazement, half-fear (“They’re three weeks old, Stevie, the only way they could hurt you’s if someone threw one atcha.” “It’s the retractable claws,” Steve had said, eyes widening imperceptibly as one kitten started nosing curiously at his knee. “They give me the creeps. _Are you laughing at me_.”). Coney Island Fair. Sitting by the docks on winter mornings as Steve sketches, itching for a cigarette but holding off, ‘cause of his lungs. Steve out cold on his sofa the few times he managed to work a full shift through. Steve at his mom’s funeral, looking hard and soft all at the same time. Steve laughing. Steve smiling. Steve staggering back up from a blow.

Like a waterfall of gold coins, all these little, bright moments.

-

He remembers kissing that dock worker – Buck can’t remember his name, even though they musta messed around a whole bunch of times, enough for the guy to start getting twitchy, to start looking askance at Buck when they went for drinks, as if there was something he wanted to say, something just on the tip of his tongue – started ignoring him when he passed in the street. Looking at his feet, ashamed.

So this one time Buck sees the guy coming on Benson Avenue. He’s still thrilled by the novelty of it and still naïve to the ugly parts of it, still high on the guy’s straight-jaw, on those shoulders hard with muscle, so he grabs him and shoved him back into the alleyway between 19th and 86th, kissed him rough and deep. Right there in daylight.

He remembers hearing a clatter and a muted curse, and breaking away, heart hammering fit to burst. Seeing someone blond and tiny at the head of the alley, scrabbling for whatever they’ve just dropped. Hurrying away.

It doesn’t matter that the guy – and what was his name? Did he ever even find out the guy’s name? – shoved him back, spitting swear words – “ _Are you fuckin’ crazy? Never again, you fuckin’ – never again, d’you hear?_ ” – Buck just stood there, heart pounding as he stared after Steve, dismay nauseously creeping through him.

Later, he waits for Steve outside the art class he takes on Thursday evenings, the cheap one that runs out of the sports hall of some high school down at Vinegar Hill. He runs his hands through his hair, paces, smokes endless cigarettes. Miserable thoughts chase their tails in his head.

When the door finally opens and the students trickle out, Steve is the last to leave, skinny arms hugging a folder that’s almost as big as he is to his chest. He looks up and catches Buck’s eye, and his face breaks into its normal easy smile.

“Hey, Buck. What are you doing here?”

There’s a moment of total blankness as all of Buck’s excuses and apologies evaporate, and then he summons his own smile, and manages to say - “Just makin’ sure you got outta class okay, dumb punk like you might manage to drown himself in a paint pot,” – and Steve is walking along beside him like he expects Buck to follow, like everything is normal, and shit, disbelief is fuckin’ _thundering_ in him – because it’s real easy to have nothing against queers until the queer in question is someone who shares your bed on the regular, you know?

But no, Steve is just rolling his eyes and snorting, saying “That’s real funny, Buck. Hey, my ma saved us a coupla dollars, you wanna get milkshakes at the diner on 20th?”

Buck remembers his mouth running on, saying whatever shit it normally says, walking along next to Steve with this relief radiating through him, thinking _shit, I’m so lucky. I’m so fuckin’ lucky._

-

There’s a couple of women sitting watching their kids at one end of the park, But Bucky figures he should be heading for the scruffier group who are sitting camped out round the benches instead. Cigarette smoke and quiet voices drift towards him. It’s a small group, ten or so people, sitting in a rough circle. Those that can’t fit on the bench are sitting cross-legged on bits of cardboard or plastic bags. One or two of them stand. They fall silent as he approaches.

“Is Farideh here?” Buck says. He figures it’s best to be blunt.

“That’s me.” Farideh is an older woman, sitting at the back of the group with her back to the bench. Strands of grey hair escape her headscarf to fall across her face, and a black chador lies in a heap on the grass at her side. She eyes Bucky shrewdly, a half-smile on her face. “Where’d you spring from, then?”

“I was sleeping rough in Khiyaban. In the mosque.” Buck says, eyes scanning the circle. Four women, including Farideh, and seven men. One of the women is middle-aged, her face suspicious, her cheeks hollow; the other two are young, pretty, huddled together confidentially at the edge of the group. Of the men – three assumed war vets with four legs between them. Two addicts. One alcoholic. One unknown. Low risk. Low risk. Low risk.

Farideh’s eyes apparently find nothing to object to in Buck’s face, because she shifts slightly and indicates a spot between herself and one of the vets. “Come. Sit. We’ve sent Sadeq to get us some tea. I’ve slept at Sohrab’s mosque a few times myself.”

-

Later, as they sit drinking black tea from small, tulip-shaped glasses, brought by Sadeq – a nervous boy whose bones are too big and whose clothes are two small – the three vets (“Reza, Musa, and this one, this one we just call Agha Gham,” Farideh had whispered in Buck’s ear) are taking it in turns to recite poetry. The others lounge in the grass, listening to old ghazals, verses of the Shanameh.

Buck watches silently as Agha Gham (“’Cause he never fucking smiles,” one of the younger girls had whispered in explanation) recites, keeping time with a lit cigarette.

                “I will plant my hands in the garden,

                and they will grow –

                I know, I know, I know –

                and in the ink-stained hollows of my wrists,

                swallows will lay their eggs.”

His voice is rough and slow, waves washing pebbles along a beach. Buck finds himself staring absently at his own hands, clasped around the glass of tea. He wonders what would grow if he planted them.

-

“And why exactly were you denied entry to Iran, sir?” The man pronounces it _eye-ran_.

“I, uh, I didn’t have the correct visa.” Steve has never been pulled aside at passport control before. He feels like an ass for admitting it, but he doesn’t really _do_ passport control; mostly it’s military bases and private helipads. Or pensioners’ back gardens (but that was only once, okay, and it was an issue of _miscommunication_ ).

The man across the desk from him flicks through Steve’s passport. Up until a few months ago, Steve hadn’t known he had a passport. The photo in it is terrible. “Seems to me you don’t have a visa for Iran in here at all.”

“That is correct, sir.”

The man raises his eyebrows, tosses Steve’s passport back to him. “So you’re telling me you’ve just tried to illegally enter Al-Qaeda territory with a bunch of bulletproof combat gear and a coupla bowie knives in your cabin baggage, and you’re expecting me to just wave you on through?”

“Actually, sir, I don’t think Al-Qaeda is really based in-“

“Shut it.” The man glowers at him. “Don’t be a wise guy. Can you give me a _single_ reason why I should let you into the United States today, considering your flight record?”

“Sir, I don’t want to be rude,” Steve says desperately “but I am _literally Captain America_.”

-

Bucky spends his days sitting on the benches, chain-smoking. It doesn’t make his chest hurt the way it used to. It’s probably good he never went into the superhero business; he’d be a terrible role model, what with all the smoking. And the, uh, murder.

Sometimes one or two of the veterans will come to sit with him in silence. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they leave him alone, each of them sitting on separate benches. Everyone seems to know when someone just wants to sit with all his ghosts.

Now and again, Farideh comes to perch beside him, colourful scarf wound loosely around her head. She slips him food, sometimes cigarettes; she keeps the conversation light, never straying too far into the past.

Sometimes it’s almost comfortable.

Suddenly, there’s a clatter, the sharp noise of metal on stone. Before he has time to think, Buck finds himself on the ground behind the bench, his metal hand clenched over the source of the noise. Reflex.

Slowly, he removes his hand.

A bird lies stunned on the ground, its tiny chest quaking in terror. The can it had been pecking at lies to one side. Buck draws back.

After a moment, the bird twitches back to life. It gives Bucky a wide-eyed glance, then takes flight, disappearing into the trees.

The others are perched under the scruffy acacia across the park, their pale faces turned to him, questioning.

They look comfortable, like a group of high schoolers – just grown up and grown ragged. They look human. They look safe.

Buck takes a deep breath and looks at his hands, the right one trembling slightly, the left perfectly still.

Safe. No. He isn’t safe.

-

“Do you ever think of going back?”

Gham’s face flickers in the darkness. The fire they lit in the park’s bin gives off more smoke than light, but it’s something. Musa is talking to Reza and the two girls, engaged enough in the conversation to give Buck and Gham some privacy. Sadeq is staying with a friend tonight. Farideh has disappeared into the darkness. No-one asked where to.

Gham takes a drag on his cigarette before answering. One of his cheekbones has been shattered at some point, has healed badly, and the unevenness of his face makes him look older than he is. “To Afghanistan?” Buck nods. Gham breathes out a slow cloud of smoke. “No. I’ve thought about it. I had a wife, a son. A mother, a father. Just like everyone. And it’s my homeland.” He takes another drag. “But some things are fucked beyond repair.”

Bucky nods silently. He lets his eyes glide over Musa and the girls, the kind, ravaged faces.

“Did you like the poetry? The other night?” Gham, never usually so talkative, is giving Buck a sly smile. “I saw you listening.”

“Yeah. The one about, uh, about planting your hands. Yeah.”

Gham leans back slightly and closes his eyes.

    “Lost are those alleys giddy with perfume,

    Lost in the clamouring of streets with no return.

    And the girl who used to colour her cheeks

    with the petals of geraniums – ah,

    is a lonely woman now,

    is a lonely woman now.”

Gham’s eyes flutter open. He sniggers when he catches sight of Buck’s frozen, awkward expression. “Forough Farrokhzad. My favourite. I loved her, when I was at university in Kabul. But don’t worry, I won’t make you listen to any more of it tonight.”  
-

Rain falls that night – a fine, whispering rain which will seep through groundsheets and sleeping bags and sleeping bodies, cold enough to make Farideh’s bones ache when she wakes. The sun will rise in a sky that is giddy with blood red and blossom pink, the mynah birds singing sweet and low in the old acacia. Reza and Musa will take deep breaths of the morning air and shake off their nightmares; the girls will arrive early, bringing with them warm bread and steaming glasses of tea. Aliyah will say that it’s the kind of morning that makes her think of Saadi and Hafez, of the beautiful stretching gardens of Shiraz and Isfahan. Gham will just twist his mouth in a wry half-smile.

But Bucky is not there at dawn. He slipped away in the night, with the darkness and the fine and whispering rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in two days, because I like this chapter and was excited to post it! I study Farsi at uni and would love love love to go to Iran one day. 
> 
> 1\. The idea of Steve trying to get through Iranian passport control, which is notoriously difficult for US/UK citizens and definitely does not react well to Western arrogance, is absolutely hilarious to me
> 
> 2\. Forough Farrokhzad is one of my favourite Persian poets and she's crazy popular in Iran. If you imagine Sylvia Plath with less misery and more natural imagery, that should give you a good idea. She was an absolutely brilliant writer, and I'd 100% recommend looking her up. The two poems quoted here are 'Another Birth' and 'Those Days', and they're both gorgeous. The quote about planting your hands is one of my favourite bits of poetry ever. 
> 
> 3\. Ta'arof is Iranian etiquette, and it's ridiculous and makes me wonder how anyone ever gets anything done
> 
> 4\. I think this is the first example of Actual Gay Stuff in this story, I promise there will be more
> 
> 5\. I'm sorry if anyone reading this knows anything at all about Brooklyn, because I think from my haphazard use of street names and neighbourhoods, it's pretty obvious I don't...
> 
> 6\. Seagulls raise their chicks on the roof opposite mine every year and they are so. fucking. cute.
> 
> 7\. My boyfriend is scared of kittens because of the retractable claws. Yes, I laugh at him for it.


	8. Interlude - somewhere near the Afghan border

Natasha sits on the windowsill, her back to the roughly plastered wall. The street outside is empty and cold.

She’s read her files and memorised what she needs to, so she thinks nothing, letting her mind rest.

There’s a tap at the door, and her commander leans in. “Kabul” he says, without preamble. “Thursday.”

Nat nods, and he withdraws.

They don’t bother with small talk here. Nor names. ‘Commander’ is sufficient.

She waits until dusk to check her phone. The SVR-RF monitors her calls and texts, but they also insist that she checks in with friends, updating them on the holiday she is currently pretending to take in the Canary Islands.

Luckily, Nat doesn’t have friends. She does, however, have a lot of ex-associates with watertight new identities who are perfectly willing to pretend to be friends with the woman she is pretending to be.

She uploads the photos her commanders have given her to the Facebook profile her _other_ commanders have set up for her. She texts her mother; on this mission, her mother is a 6’3”, heavily tattooed senior CIA agent called Brian. Not that her Russian commanders know that.

That done, Natasha brings up another number, this one given to her by neither the SVR-RF nor the CIA.

“the beaches are so beautiful here, asdksafghkbldkjhkj! coffee when we get back?”

The other texts in her outbox are littered with keyboard-smashes and slang, so this text is unlikely to be flagged as suspicious.

-

In a studio flat in Pennsylvania, a young woman picks up her phone and glances at her texts. She replies to a couple.

Ninety minutes later, she leaves her flat for the nearest grocery store, one she has been visiting two or three times a week since she moved to the area. She pretends not to notice the two agents who follow her inside.

She browses slowly, taking her time. When she reaches the checkout, she places an apple, a bag of flour, and a grapefruit on the belt, and then a can of beans, a packet of bacon, a lime. _My grandmother went to the shops and bought..._

The boy on the checkout doesn’t look up as he scans them through.

-

When he goes out for a smoke break, the boy from behind the counter makes a phone call. One or two passersby hear him ranting into his mobile – “Shit, man, you should fuckin’ see it these days, everyone’s from Iran and Pakistan and shit, I’ll bet even the fuckin’ capital city’s full of ‘em.” No-one stops to challenge him.

-

A young man idly looks at Google maps, not zooming in on any particular location. He checks a few major news websites, then goes out to buy a newspaper. Later, he texts one of his uncles about a story in the New York Times.

-

A father of two in Oregon opens the Times, reads a story about some current UN drama. Underneath it is a short report about a recent terror incident overseas. He folds the newspaper into his briefcase. Later he will leave it in a prearranged location.

-

An intern in Virginia posts a link to a news story about a recent terror incident overseas to her Facebook profile, along with a series of comments regarding the incident’s position on the newspaper’s website, the lack of international outcry, the number of lives lost. She expresses disappointment that Facebook will not let her overlay her profile picture with the flag of the country affected.

-

Steve is lying on his bed, reading a vintage (“ _Steve, man, it’s not vintage, it’s just old_.”) baseball magazine when his phone buzzes. He jumps guiltily, sighs, sets the magazine aside.

The text is from an unknown number.

“Your boy’s headed to Kabul. No need to thank me ;)”.

The winky face still makes Steve feel awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for something completely different. 
> 
> I had loads of fun trying to imagine dumb-as-shit ways for Nat to get a secret message out whilst being watched by Russian intelligence. Sooo, the letters AFG-KBL are hidden in her keyboard smash, and also in her "friend"'s shopping; the boy at the checkout is bitching about Iran and Pakistan, which border Afghanistan, the capital of which is Kabul; and so on. 
> 
> Thanks for all the comments, it means a lot!


	9. Kabul, Afghanistan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yo, this chapter and a couple of other ones coming up are trigger warning central.
> 
> Implied child abuse, drug use, violence.
> 
> Also, recommended listening for this chapter - 'Come Down to Us' by Burial.

“Out of the car. Now. Quiet. Good.”

“Nice car. Where are you going?”

“I asked you where you were going. Answer me when I fucking talk to you.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said answer me when I fucking talk to you. Search his car. You, you have five seconds to talk, and then I put a bullet in your skull. Where are you going?”

-

Bucky leaves the bodies where they fall. He’s sure they aren’t the first bodies to rot by the side of the Khyber Pass.

-

_“Stop fidgeting, Buck, I need the light on your face to stay the same.”_

_Bucky shifts awkwardly on the wooden kitchen chair. He’s itching for a smoke, but Steve’s asthma’s been so bad recently he’s worried the punk’ll stop breathing if he lights one up. And then he’d probably complain the smoke was messing with his light quality._

_“C’mon, Steve,” Buck whines. “You said it was just a quick sketch.”_

_“Even – a – quick – sketch –“ Steve talks jerkily, punctuating his words with quick, feather-light pencil strokes – “Takes time.” His eyes flick from the paper to Bucky’s face and back again. Buck twists uncomfortably. He’s no shrinking violet, but he can’t remember the last time someone spent so long studying his face._

_“Why’d you want me for this anyway, huh,” he blurts out, unable to let the silence lie. “Why not one of the other guys in your class?”_

_“You have nice bone structure,” Steve says mildly, in the tone of voice a person might use to describe their new kitchen cabinets. Buck’s mouth hangs open for a minute before he remembers to shut it. His face feels hot._

_“Besides, have you seen the other guys in my art class, Buck?” Steve continues. “If I wanted to draw a bunch of potatoes, I woulda taken still life.”_

-

He pauses when he sees the armed men, dressed in the typical loose black clothes, their faces covered. Two of them are pacing round the houses, kicking in doors; the others are standing in the flat, open space at the centre of the village, guns pointed at the huddled villagers.

Buck finds a tree and hauls himself into the branches. This isn’t necessarily a valid target. Trade gone wrong, intimidation rackets, family disagreements, skirmishes between rival tribes; in some set-ups, everyone is as bad as each other. He pushes the loose cotton back from his face. He’s dressed in the same baggy, off-white garments that most men here wear. He can’t remember where he got them.

There’s no need to pick out targets in advance here, no need for the careful planning and research he’d had to do in Belarus, in Russia. Here he just walks. If you walk far enough in Afghanistan, mostly the targets’ll pick you.

A shout – one of the men darts through the door he has just broken down, and hauls out a writhing kid. The kid struggles; the man throws him to the ground, and then kicks him with enough force to send him skidding.

One of the women in the central group shouts something incoherent and lurches forwards. There’s laughter from the men. The one who found the kid looks back to them and calls out. Then he turns, still laughing, and shoots the kid in the head.

The woman’s scream makes the bark beneath Buck’s fingers vibrate. More laughter. One of the men slouches forwards, and with sudden violence tears away the woman’s headscarf, seizes her by the hair.

Buck checks over the AK ( _where did I get a fuckin’ AK?_ ) one last time, and takes aim.

-

A cold memory, this one. Harsh lights, concrete floors. Metal. Screams. A small figure sobs in its cell.

 _Use your imagination_ , the handler had said.

Needles. Ginger root. Scalpels. Electrodes. Rope. Troughs of water. Heavy black cloth. A woman’s face so warped with grief that it is no longer human.

 _Even when you put people through hell, they can keep going for their children_ , the handler had said.

A metal hand unlocks a heavy door. A small figure sobs in its cell.

 _People can keep going just for the memories of their children_ , the handler had said.

A small figure that sobs in its cell. A woman’s face so warped by grief that it is no longer human.

 _This is how you create a living ghost,_ the handler had said.

-

Further east, and the land is vaguely familiar now. There’s something in the shapes of the mountains that he remembers. _1971_ , a cold part of him murmurs. _Kunduz. 1989. Kabul_. Unimportant.

It is not difficult to find a militia that does not ask questions. Buck walks when the others walk, sleep when they sleep. Follows orders. Rarely speaks. Smokes. Keeps watch. Cleans the guns. Disassembles and reassembles.

He knows how to do this.

One night he wakes to find one of the others crouched over him, a knife in his hands. When he sees that Buck is awake, the other man remains still; this is a test. After a moment, Buck reaches out and grasps the man’s throat, drags him forward, holds him long enough to make the message clear. Lets him go.

He knows how to do this.

A few days later, and there are US soldiers in the village across the river from their camp. They’ve got the inhabitants lined up against a wall with their hands clasped behind their heads. They take them one by one and pull their eyes wide, force their mouths open. Taking iris scans. DNA samples. The way you’d catalogue livestock. Buck’s seen it before.

One man jerks away from the soldiers’ hands. His complaints trickle through to them, his voice half-lost in the noise of the river. The soldier shoves him. Strikes him across the face with that hand that is holding his gun.

That night, they hear shots, and then distant cheers. They find the villagers huddled around a small body, quietly crying amongst themselves.

 _He was just coming home_ , Buck hears them say. _He was just coming home. He always liked following the stray cats out into the fields. I was always telling him not to stay out so late._

He looks at the body. The blood is dull against the ragged shirt. It trickles from the corner of the child’s mouth.

When he is finished with the soldiers, Buck piles up the bodies, douses them in petrol siphoned from the engines of their own jeeps, and sets them alight.

After that, no-one comes to crouch over him in his sleep again.

-

They sit round the fire. Some of the men lounge on rugs that they’ve laid out, already lost in their dreams. A pipe passes from hand to hand. When it comes to him, Buck takes it, breathes the heavy, sick-sweet smoke deep down into his lungs.

After that he sees colour washing up buildings as they collapse – great vivid swirls of it leaping over the crumbling concrete and twisting girders. Children run on breaking limbs. His hands twist in someone’s hair, wrench the head back towards him. He knows how to do this. The faces are so warped that they are no longer human. The buildings collapse in sickening rushes of colour. Small bodies stumble around him. Their bones shatter. They crumple in on themselves. He wrenches a head back and it has Steve’s face, so warped by grief that it is no longer human. _This is how you create a living ghost_ , his handler says.

-

There are more villages. Sprays of bullets, faint and distant as rain. Blood on his hands. After a while, he stops bothering to scrub it off. There are greying corpses. Cigarettes. Buildings and boulders and roadsides that he thinks he has seen before.

There are silent, wide-eyed children. There are men whose mouths are hard lines.

The scarf across his face is as good as a mask.

Cormorants in the dusty sky. Exit wounds. Limbs without bodies. Cigarettes.

-

In Kabul the streets are broad and the buildings hunch low to the ground. He skirts the city, walking along the edges of the roads with the children, with the women who go begging from car to car, their hands outstretched. The body is pining, sick for something it cannot have; a deep ache lurches in its bones. He thinks again and again of a pipe passed from hand to hand. Slack faces lost in sleep.

He stumbles on.

Nights he spends walking, eliminating targets as he finds them. First with bullets, and when the bullets run out, with knives. When there are no knives, he uses his hands. His nails. He knows how to do this. This is what he is for.

He stumbles rings through the outer suburbs, walking until his sight flickers. Sometimes the body collapses; he sleeps. He dreams he is opening a cell door, again and again and again.

Children still play in the street here. They run after footballs, wheel along brightly coloured bikes and scooters, chase each other shrieking through the alleyways. Boys move between the cars, selling balloons, brightly coloured kites. Once Buck strays closer to the city centre and finds a festival in full swing. There’s music, teenagers laughing and dancing, old women handing out flowers. _Violence will not defeat us_ , a sign tells him. _Kabul can be a place of joy._

Buck wonders if there are places more broken than this – places so broken that the creeping badness in him won’t be a risk to anyone, won’t radiate out from him like poison in the water supply. A place where there are only targets. No women handing out flowers. No children playing in the street. Just targets, so he can do what he knows how to do.

No, he thinks. There isn’t.

-

Nights follow days follow nights follow days.

-

He begins to see warped figures in his peripheral vision that disappear when he looks at them directly. He hears snatches of song. Distant shrieks. He walks and finds himself in streets that he does not recognise. He peers into shop windows and finds himself looking at a man he does not know.

-

The hours before dawn find him sitting in Bagrami, his back to the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest. This is a fragment of a house, one of the many houses in Kabul that was half-built and then abandoned. The roof is mostly missing and the bare plaster crumbles from the walls. Cobwebs tremble in the glassless windows.

He sits, his head tilted back, absently staring up through the hole where half the roof should be.

One of the stray dogs outside emits a snarling bark. Somewhere there is gunfire.

Today was a good day. No, inaccurate. Today was a functional day. Targets eliminated. Few bodily injuries sustained. Good. Good. Good.

There is a figure in the doorway. At first, Bucky isn’t concerned; there are lots of figures in lots of doorways these days, and this one is certainly pale enough to be one of his many ghosts.

But then the figure says something, and the door creaks in a way that seems more real than imaginary. Buck pulls himself up a little, and squints at the figure. His thoughts swim in lazy circles. It takes effort to focus his eyes, as if he’s forgotten how to do it.

 _Steve_. The name rises to the surface slowly, as if through treacle. For a moment, Buck is still calm, still believes in the depths of him that this is just as unreal as everything else.

 _Steve_. Not even wearing his gear, just normal clothes - rough trousers and a white t-shirt, looking almost absurdly clean and healthy and wholesome, like something off the TV.

He’s coming towards Buck with that soft, open look on his face and suddenly, suddenly Buck knows that he isn’t a ghost.

It’s like touching a raw nerve. Something terrifying rears inside him and overwhelms him all in one, like being struck by lightning, and Buck finds himself crumbling. The next thing he knows, he’s fallen forwards, Steve’s hands on his shoulders, and he’s shaking apart, gasping for breath, sobbing into his goddamn white t-shirt and then screaming, fuckin’ _howling_ into Steve’s chest in the darkness of the half-built house – drowning under the blood and the bodies and that fuckin’ kid, that kid’s face, fuck. It’s a rush of colour that obliterates everything, a scouring, scorching wave of it, like lightning in his head.

Unbearable. A noise too loud to hear. A light too bright to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They finally meeeeeet~ The next three chapters are all cosy angst and I enjoyed writing them. 
> 
> I also wrote this chapter before I went volunteering in Calais. Whilst I was there, I was mostly working with Afghan refugees, since I speak Farsi, and I think if I'd written this after coming back I would have done a lot of things differently. I'm a bit worried that this chapter plays into this whole dichotomy we have in Western media where Afghans can be victims or terrorists, but are never portrayed as human beings. But equally. It's fanfic. 
> 
> Thanks very much for reading. If you're getting impatient because there has been very little ~gay stuff~ so far, I can tell you that there will be kisses in about four chapters, in a Soviet-themed gay bar in Belfast. It's gonna be real cute.


	10. Dartmoor, England - part i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: Youth - Daughter

Steve pads through the kitchen, the flagstones cold against his bare feet. It’s raining again. He can hear it pattering against the skylights and dripping from the gutters; he knows that when he opens the windows later, he’ll be met with the smell of damp earth and bruised leaves.

He fills the coffee jug from the tap, replaces the filter, flicks on the machine.

It’s all he can do just now.

He’d managed to get Buck back to the airbase at Kabul with no issues – Lord knows how – walking him through the ruined streets at dawn, the two of them like a couple of ghosts. Found Sam waiting there, barely suppressed concern on his face. Had listened to his calm, professional voice, asking the same calm, professional questions that he probably has to ask at the VA. _I’m gonna touch your chest now, if that’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. Just need to check there’s no shrapnel in the wound. What made this mark? Have you cleaned this cut? How long ago..? Does this hurt?_

And Buck sitting there, staring a thousand-yard stare, completely unresponsive.

Like a robot on standby.

 _Fuck_. Steve adjusts the coffee pot, pointlessly – it’s nowhere near done yet – trying and failing to get that image of Buck out of his head. Covered in blood and dirt. Split lips. Fractured cheekbone, quickly healing. The glassy, hopeless expression of a stray dog. Gashed ribs. Bullet holes. God, _bullet_ holes.

And not even a flicker as Sam took his weapons, quietly catalogued them. Two guns, no bullets. An old hunting knife, the top third of the blade snapped clean off. How hard does a knife have to twist against bone to break the blade? And whose bones?

Buck’s fingernails had been bloody. Steve hadn’t asked whether the blood was his or someone else’s.

He’s not sure which answer would be worse.

-

Sam had suggested the place, an updated country house with flagstones and warm wood panelling and underfloor heating and double glazing, in the middle of a county Steve still can’t really bring himself to care about.

He leans back against the granite counter, letting his eyes drift round the kitchen. It’s nice. Roomy. Pale blue walls. Skylights. Bit old-world for his tastes – he’ll take a grimy New York City apartment over this any day – but it’s _nice_. Calming. All neutral tones. Cosy but not claustrophobic. Sam’d told him that the house had been bought with Tony Stark’s money, that sometimes he puts vets up here when they can cope by themselves but aren’t ready for the real world.

Steve realises coffee has stopped trickling into the pot. He turns, finds the best mug he can (and what is _with_ that, why can’t the British make decent sized mugs?) and pours.

It’s barely 10, and Buck never gets up before noon, but he likes the coffee to be ready all the same. He pours a new one every half hour and leaves it on the table by Buck’s bed, tipping the old coffee away. It’s a ritual now. Usually he has to put a fresh pot on to brew before Buck even wakes up, but he doesn’t care; he doesn’t want him to wake and think he’s been forgotten about. A hot cup of coffee waiting by his bed. Just to remind him that he isn’t here alone.

It’s all he can do just now.

-

Steve brings him food. Plain stuff at first – oatmeal, boiled rice, toast. Unappetising army rations. Milkshakes. Baked apples. Waffles. Cabbage. Milk toast. He talks to him, plies him with falsely cheerful platitudes ( _“ How ya doing today, Buck?” “Finally some sunshine, huh, pal. Well, sorta.” “That cheekbone’s looking better already!”_ ) that make him feel like a care-worker. Then with heartfelt declarations that make him feel like they’re stuck in a cheesy sitcom (“ _I’m real glad you’re here, Buck.” “I’ve missed you.” “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”_ ). Buck just lies there, staring glassy-eyed, silent.  

Steve sits with him in silence. Steve sits and sketches. Steve fills the air with stories from when they were younger, from when Buck was “away” ( _killing people_ , his brain maliciously supplies), with rambling monologues about his own feelings. He takes away the uneaten food. He ferries in cups of coffee that he knows Buck won’t drink.

He wants to wrap Buck up in the biggest hug the world has ever seen and never let him go.

He wants to shake him by his scarred shoulders and scream.

-

On day five, Steve gives in and phones Sam.

“– he just won’t eat, no matter what I do.” He pauses, swallows back the lump in his throat. “Won’t talk either, hasn’t said a word since he got back.” Pauses again. “Sam, I don’t know what to do.”

“Steve, listen,” – Sam’s voice is calm and measured on the other end of the line.  “I know this is crazy scary for you, but it’s totally normal for someone as traumatised as this guy is. Hell, I saw it back in Iraq more times than I can count.”

Steve clings to the words, leaning against the kitchen table like he might fall over without it. He’s suddenly hopelessly, pathetically grateful for Sam and his kind voice and his VA training.

“What do I do?”

“First, you gotta accept that any progress you make is gonna be slow. Dude’s been through hell, you can’t just kiss it better.”

A pause. A sigh.

“Listen, you’re not gonna like this, but sometimes ex-soldiers deal better with commands than they do requests.”

-

So there he is, standing in front of Buck’s bed with a bowl of cereal (start small, Sam had said. _No point cooking him a three course meal if he’s just gonna puke it back up_ ). The words catch in his throat.

“Soldier,” Steve manages, shame crawling up his insides as he holds the bowl out. “Eat this.”

And Buck does. And Steve suddenly wants to cry, more than he has since before he came out of the ice.

-

Day eight, and Steve finds Buck sitting in the chair by the window, his knees drawn up to his chest.

-

Day nine, and Steve suggests a shower. Buck goes white as a sheet, mutely shakes his head, and goes back to bed.

-

On day twelve Steve finally breaks and begs, actually _begs_ him to talk.

“Please Buck,” he’s saying, “please, even just one word, _anything_ -“

Bucky’s eyes are a little less glassy than usual, and he’s staring at Steve with a faint frown, as if trying to decipher what he’s saying. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. Trying to get the words out but choking on them.

Finally he manages to stammer out a tiny “ _Sorry”,_ his voice creaky with lack of use.

That day, he doesn’t need to be ordered to eat his dinner.

Steve phones Sam and does a tiny happy dance in the kitchen.

-

Steve thinks of Bucky talking to his ma, before the pneumonia finally took her, sitting in their crummy kitchen as charming and handsome as you please – _“How are things at the laundry, Mrs Rogers? I bet that’s harder work than most people think.” “This is swell, Mrs. Rogers, you sure are a mean cook.”_ Thinks of his ma smiling after him when he left, saying _“James is such a nice kid, Stevie, I’m so glad you’re friends.”_

He thinks of Buck picking up dames in bars, talking a mile a minute and then drawing back to listen, really _listen_ when it was their turn to talk. They used to go crazy for him.

He thinks of him in the trenches, cracking jokes, that smile spreading across his face, the kinda smile that makes you smile too, no matter how cold and wet and bloody you are, no matter how long it’s been since you last slept.

-

It’s well past the two-week mark when Buck finally leaves his room, and comes to stand in the kitchen, eyes flicking up nervously, pale and sweating – anxious, Steve realises. Anxious to be there.

He gets up slowly, pretending to miss the nervous twitch the movement elicits – pours a cup of coffee, carefully places it on the table.

“This is for you if you want it, Buck.” Steve speaks quietly, doing his best to imitate Sam’s trauma voice.

He’s halfway back to his chair when he remembers what he bought just before they arrived. He opens a draw, sparking another nervous twitch, and finds the packet of smokes he left inside. Sets them out next to the coffee.

“Sam – you know Sam, he checked you over at the airbase – probably won’t be too happy about smoking in his fancy house, but I’m sure he’ll cope,” Steve says wryly.

For a moment Bucky just looks at the cigarettes dubiously, like they might bite him. Finally, he edges towards the table, painfully wary, and slides into a chair. He shakes a smoke from the pack, sticks it in his mouth, and lights up, a series of gestures so familiar that it makes Steve’s chest hurt.

It must steady him a bit, because after a moment, eyes firmly pointed at the floor, Buck says –

“You’re. You’re Steve.”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve says, trying to keep the hope out of his voice. “Do you – do you remember me?”

“I don’t-“ Buck frowns. “I don’t know.”

-

After that, Buck’s speech comes back in dribs and drabs.

Sometimes it’s good.

Sometimes it’s less good.

-

“I got you your first beer.”

“Uh, yeah. In Red Hook. I was, uh, I was sick on your favourite pair of shoes. You gave me hell for it later.”

“Tan wingtips. Cost me a whole month’s wages.” Buck says flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Goddamn punk.”

He’s still looking at the floor, but there’s the faintest hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Steve has to fight an overwhelming urge to get up and wrap him in the biggest goddamn hug the world has ever seen.

-

“I. I was in. K-Korea. In ‘51. I had to. To. Make sure the stragglers kept up. Went as f-fast as they could. To increase. To increase fatalities.”

-

“There was a woman downstairs when we lived in H-Highland Park. She had a real ugly dog. We used to feed it chipped beef when she wasn’t looking. We didn’t have enough to eat but we did it anyway.”

-

One day, Steve finds Bucky in the kitchen, staring at the oven timer, white as a sheet, fine tremors running through him.

He tries saying hello. Asking if he’s okay. Calling his name. No response.

Eventually Steve screws up his courage and puts a hand on his shoulder, but Buck rounds on him, something terrifying and alien in his eyes. Then he freezes, before he stammers an apology and retreats to his room.

-

“I showed you those dumbass seagulls on the roof of. Of. On the opposite roof. S-summer. It was sunny. You. You looked good. Looked real – happy. Made me happy.”

-

“They liked v-vivisection. See what makes me tick. D-d-d. Didn’t really do. Anaesthesia.”

-

“They used to hose Assets down after missions. They had this. This room. Tiles and drains. R-r-r-restraints on the walls. Sometimes the cold water made Assets. Unpredictable. They. The, uh. The guards. Some of them liked to come in with you. Whilst you were chained up.”

A long pause.

“It was so fucking cold,” Buck says. His voice cracks.

-

You can’t half-ass dehumanising someone, after all. Let someone think they deserve hot water and they might start thinking they deserved all kinds of other things, too.

-

There’s a fancy soap shop a couple of villages over, the kind that looks like something out of Harry Potter, all brightly coloured liquids and flower petals and glittery bath bombs. Steve spends so long in there that the two girls behind the counter stop asking him if he’s okay and let him just browse.

-

When he gets back, Buck wrinkles up his nose and eyes him suspiciously.

“Why –“ he starts to speak, but his voice fails. Steve is used to this by now, so he just waits.

“Why do you smell like someone puked a whole Macy’s perfume counter onto a rose field.”

-

Later, Steve runs a bath, as hot as he can make it. He uses a bath bomb that turns the water violet and lines up the tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner he’d bought along the side of the tub. After a moment’s pause, he drops a handful of dissolvable flower petals into the water, knowing full-well what Buck would say about it if he were his usual self.

He tries not to be sad about the fact that he probably won’t even roll his eyes.

He taps gently on the door of Buck’s bedroom, and then lets himself in. Buck is sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring into the distance.

“I ran you a bath,” he says. Buck looks at him quizzically. “No offense, pal, but you smell.” Steve pauses. “You can spend as long as you like in there. You can just top it up with more hot water if it starts getting cold. I made you some coffee to take in with you and everything.”

For a moment, he thinks Buck’ll just sit there in his dirty pyjamas, staring into space – but then he slowly gets to his feet, and takes the cup of coffee from Steve’s hands.

-

Steve spends the next forty minutes pacing up and down outside the bathroom door, trying not to let paranoia get the best of him. Buck’s a grown man, he’s not gonna drown in the _bath_. He listens to the gentle noises of the water, the clink of Buck’s coffee cup against the tub; and then eventually the gurgling of the drain and the buzzing of the electric razor.

Steve’s sitting in a forcedly casual way when Buck finally pushes the bathroom door open, slips back into his bedroom, and returns a few minutes later, wearing a new set of pyjamas.

He hesitates, then sits down on the couch – next to Steve, this time, rather than right at the far end. Steve feels the nearness of him in the pit of his stomach. Buck looks better like this, the bruises almost faded, hair hanging in wet strands round his face. Looks almost like himself.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“I’ve left one hell of a ring around that bath,” Buck says. “My ma would’ve had a goddamn heart attack if she saw it.”

“Told you you were starting to smell.”

A smile twitches at the corner of Buck’s mouth, gone as soon as it arrives.

-

Passing by the door of Bucky’s bedroom one night, Steve hears muffled sobs. He pauses, stops to listen, and manages to make out someone rambling in a language he doesn’t understand.

Then there’s a scream.

There’s a pause, and then Buck – and of course it’s Buck, who else could it be? – screams again, a raw scream of pure terror that trails off into incoherent sobbing.

The words have a helpless, desperate edge to them – begging, Steve realises. Buck’s begging.

He pauses outside the bedroom door, fists clenched. Nightmares are a tough one, because no-one, _no-one_ likes being woken from one, being suddenly wrenched away from your personal terrors by a pair of hands that could belong to anyone, but-

Buck shrieks again, and Steve swallows his reservations and opens the bedroom door, because some nightmares aren’t worth sleeping through, and this definitely sounds like one of them.

“Buck.” he says, carefully stepping over the blankets to where Bucky lies, tossing and turning, eyes wandering beneath their lids. “ _Buck_. C’mon buddy.”

But the moment he reaches out to put his hands on Buck’s shoulders, Buck snaps upright, and suddenly Steve finds himself on his back, and then there’s a flash of white light and pain and nausea and - Buck’s _hitting_ him, metal fist cracking into his face with terrifying force, and Steve’s saying his name, saying _Buck, stop, it’s me_ , putting his hands up to his face-

“Buck, _STOP_.” Finally, Steve plants both hands on Buck’s chest and shoves him so hard that Buck tumbles back, suddenly awake and gaping at him.

“S-sorry,” Buck croaks out, something blank and terrible on his face. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I-“

For a second, Steve thinks he’s saying sorry for bloodying his nose, but the apologies keep coming, tumbling out of Buck’s mouth almost convulsively, and he’s terrified, shaking with it-

“Buck – Buck – _Buck_ , stop, stop apologising, I’m not gonna _hurt_ you.”

Buck stops abruptly, a kind of _does not compute_ expression on his face. For a moment they’re both silent, sprawled on the bedroom floor staring at each other. 

Then Bucky deflates a bit, says “Steve?” in this real small voice, looking at him in disbelief.

“Yeah, I’m here, pal.”

“Shit, I – I’m-“

And then Buck just kind of crumples in on himself, and Steve draws him close, feels the warmth of him as Bucky cries his fucking eyes out into his friend’s chest.

-

“Noise. Noise is – was – against protocol.” Buck thumps down into a kitchen chair. Steve looks up from his book. Buck meets his gaze, catches sight of the black eye, and looks away. Swears under his breath.

“There would have been consequences for breaching protocol like that,” he says flatly. “Punishment.”

“I’m not gonna punish you for having nightmares, Buck.”

Buck shoots him a wry smile. Lights a smoke. Steve tries to pretend he doesn’t notice his good hand shaking.

“Yeah, well the _logical_ part of my brain knows that, dumbass.”

-

“Next time, you gotta just leave me, champ.” That had been what Buck’d said. “I can’t. You. I can. Can get unpredictable. If you wake me up. So you’ve gotta just leave me.”

So next time, that’s what Steve does.

He sits in the kitchen and watches the clock crawl past 3AM, and then creep towards 4, and he listens to Buck screaming and begging and crying. Sometimes in Russian. Sometimes in other languages that Steve doesn’t recognise.

Sometimes in English. And that gets to Steve more than anything else, that’s what worms its way into his head and stays there. Because as long as Buck is shouting and screaming in a language he doesn’t speak, Steve can pretend it’s someone else, but when he can understand every word-

He sits at the kitchen counter with his head in his hands and waits.

When Buck eventually comes through, he’s white as a sheet, and with a jolt Steve realises that the bone-thin, hollowed-out man standing in front of him – well, if you stood him next to a picture of James B. Barnes, the way he was back in the 30s, back in Brooklyn, there wouldn’t be many people able to tell it was the same guy.

“Hey, Buck. Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Buck plops down into one of the kitchen chairs and presses his hands to his face. He’s shaking, and his breath is coming in ragged gasps. When Steve reaches out to touch his shoulder, he flinches.

“It’s okay, Buck, I’m not gonna – I won’t touch you if you don’t want. Just want you to know I’m here.”

Eventually, Buck’s breathing slows. When he finally lowers his hands, the shaking has almost stopped.

“You wanna talk about it?” Steve says. Buck shakes his head.

“Never used to scream. Back in. In.” He takes a deep breath, makes an abortive gesture with one hand. His next words come out in a jumble, tripping over each other on their way out of his mouth. “You know. There would’ve been. Been. Consequences. They would’ve beaten the fuckin’ shit out of me, would’ve had me strapped down in that chair so they could all. Could.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. Buck was never the kinda guy who appreciated platitudes. Instead, he glances up at the clock. It’s past four now, and he figures neither of them are going to be getting any sleep any time soon, so he says-

“You want some coffee?”

Buck makes an indistinct _uh-huh_ kind of noise, and Steve figures that’s a yes. He gets up to switch on the coffee machine. There’s the rasp of a match as Buck lights a smoke – for some reason he won’t use lighters, even though Steve left one in the kitchen draw for him. They really aren’t meant to smoke in the house, and he knows Sam’ll probably throw a fit when he finds out, but hey. Desperate times, and all that jazz.

When the coffee’s done, Steve pours it out into the two biggest mugs and puts them on the counter in front of Buck. When he sits down next to him, he clasps his hands round his coffee. _Don’t worry, I’m not gonna touch you_.

Buck finishes his cigarette and stubs it out on a fancy saucer which is probably-definitely not intended to be used as an ashtray.

“I’ve done some real bad things, Steve,” he says hoarsely.

“So have I,” Steve replies – but Buck just shakes his head, this awful, haunted look on his face.

“No. No, you. You haven’t. Not the way I have.” His voice cracks halfway through, and he starts shaking again, so hard that he has to put his coffee down before he spills it.

And Steve’s just sitting there watching him, feeling like his goddamn heart is cracking right down the middle, because the thing is, Buck’s _right_.

Finally, not knowing what else to do, he reaches out and (slowly, slowly) puts his hand on Buck’s back. Buck doesn’t flinch this time, so Steve slides on arm around him, holding him as close as he dares.

“I know, Buck,” he says. “But I’m still glad to have you back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's commented, it cheers me up a lot <3 
> 
> The idea of Steve in Lush entertains me a whole lot and I'm not sure why. 
> 
> When editing this chapter I noticed that I'd implied Buck took part in the Armenian genocide...which took place before he was born, herpaderp. I re-jigged this one, but probably implied it in other chapters too. So, sorry about my totally shit historical knowledge. 
> 
> These two are going to be angsting in Dartmoor for a wee while, but after that I'm taking them to cities that I've actually been to and/or lived in, and I am totally fkn stoked about it. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading, hope you enjoy!


	11. Dartmoor, England - part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, trigger warnings! This chapter has some non-explicit but very strongly implied child abuse and rape. Also a lot of very bad language.

Spring here is as vivid as a bruise. The clouds are so thick they’re practically violet, the dripping plants greener than green. Fog rolls low over the distant blue hills, and the air is alive with rain and faint birdsong and the quiet noise of the wind.

If he were in a novel, Buck ( _Barnes/JamesBuchanan/high risk high risk high fucking risk_ ) reckons this would be some fuckin’ metaphor for his state of mind. Traumatised antihero sits in a garden in the aftershocks of a terrible thunderstorm, knowing that new life is sprouting under the earth, that sunshine is on its way.

What a load of horseshit.

He takes a drag on his cigarette, chases it down with the sad, watery crap that passes for coffee here. Say what you like about Afghanistan, at least they don’t half-ass their coffee.

A dead body flickers to life behind his eyes, mouth a slashed and gaping ruin. Buck blinks it away.

Soon Steve will come out to sit beside him. He’ll slide back the glass doors and pad out looking like a goddamn golden retriever, all goodness and kind concern. Might bring his sketchbook with him and pretend he’s interested in drawing the outlines of those hills for the fiftieth time this week. Might just sit there in silence. 

Bucky wants to be the guy Steve’s looking for. He knows Steve’s looking at him through a lens of ninety-odd years, knows he’s looking for the Bucky he buried in an empty grave in Greenwood cemetery. The guy who used to grin that cocky grin and take dames out dancing in wartime bars. Buck can practically see that version of himself reflected in Steve’s eyes whenever he looks at him, that’s how bad America’s most wholesome hero wants that Bucky back.

Shit, he wants to give him that. He _wants_ to give him that same old crooked grin and say _s’alright, champ, I’m still me_. Wants to act as though the trauma is just dirt sticking to his skin, the way he saw so many guys do in war time – it might take a while to scrub off, but I’m still the same man underneath, right? Right.

Or maybe he could be one of these goddamn movie stars, you know, these dark-haired guys with fuckin’ ridiculous cheekbones who are traumatised to _shit_ , but they deal with it by gulping down whiskey and smoking in their shirtsleeves with their hair all artfully ruffled. Some gorgeous dame staring at them wide-eyed, lusting after their husky voices and tired faces, wanting to fix the hurt they can see underneath. And they fuck all the blood and the torn flesh and the smoke out of their systems and age gracefully and never have panic attacks or forget how words work or tremble or puke their guts up, and they get their happy fuckin’ endings.

Maybe he could be like that.

Buck takes a blank drag on his cigarette. Smokes and black coffee. At least that’s one part of the aesthetic he’s getting right.

It’s not like he doesn’t remember the _facts_. Well, except that sometimes he doesn’t. But when he does. Bucky. BarnesJamesBuchanan. 107 th. Born, 1917. Fell howling into the ice, 1945. Shit, he remembers all that, same way he remembers the important shit about, about, shit, about the fuckin’ presidents, of the comic book characters he liked as a kid. Fictional characters. Fuckin’ history. And every time Steve reaches out to him with his warm hands and his kind eyes, Buck wants it to be James B. Barnes who responds.

But he remembers other stuff too. He remembers bone-thin faces behind bars. He remembers napalm. Remembers bodies torn open like dolls, spilling their red and grey stuffing onto the sodden ground. Remembers being the one who tore them. Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. He remembers watching women and children trudging through the dust, no water, no hope of rest, him standing on the embankment with an AK, knowing full well they were never going to get where they thought they were going. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. He remembers exit wounds. Remembers how his ribs looked with the skin stripped back. Remembers cuffs and cable ties and electric shocks and rushing water. Remembers a small figure sobbing in a cell-

He remembers being an _Asset_. Following orders. Remembers it better than he remembers being a human being, too.

Buck flexes his hands. One flesh, one metal.

When Steve reaches out for him, Buck reaches out to meet him, fuck, he reaches out. But the Asset reaches out too.

-

“Guess it rained more overnight, huh.”

Steve hasn’t brought his sketchbook today, just a cup of coffee. Buck can’t help noticing the shadows under his eyes and the stubble round his jaw. Assessment: worn down by all your bullshit, Barnes.

Steve ( _RogersStevenGrant, high risk_ ) is looking at him expectantly. Response required.

“Guess it did,” Bucky says.

Steve nods, and draws his knees up to his chest with a sigh, looking out towards the hills.

Assessment: disappointed. The corner of Buck’s mouth twitches. Assessment: response less than ideal.

“Back in. Uh. In Brooklyn,” Buck says. He falters on _Brooklyn_ , has to force the word out of his mouth. Illogical. He frowns, tries again. “In. In Brooklyn. There was a diner. On 20th.”

RogersStevenGrant is looking at him now, something hopeful in his eyes. Assessment: better. Buck finds looking directly at Steve’s face is uncomfortable, so looks at his knees instead.

“We went. After you found out I was queer. We had milkshakes.”

He hears a startled laugh. When he looks up, Steve is running one hand through his hair, looking off towards the hills.

When his eyes return to the Asset ( _Bucky_ , he tells himself. _BarnesJamesBuchanan_ ), there’s a sheepish grin on his face.

“Yeah. Uh, yeah we did.” He barks out another short laugh. “I didn’t think you remembered that.”

“Of course I fuckin’ remembered it, I thought you were gonna pitch a fit,” Buck finds himself saying. “Most guys ain’t exactly thrilled to find out their best buddy’s been sucking dicks on the side.”

“Jeez, Buck, I didn’t _care_.” Steve is still chuckling. It makes his face look young. “I was just _worried_ about you, I didn’t want a gang of guys to beat the crap outta you and throw you in the docks-“

“Well, half of that sounds like a good time.” There’s a warm feeling spreading in Buck’s chest. Medical issue possible.

“Buck.” Steve swallows the last of your laughter and puts one hand on Buck’s shoulder. Buck feels a shiver of something that is not fear in the pit of his stomach. “You do know this isn’t a problem, right? Things have changed a lot. I mean, not that it mattered then, but-“

“Cool it, Captain Soulful,” Buck says. He isn’t sure where the words come from. “Which one of us was there for the sixties anyway.”

-

Timmy is brushing through a forest outside what American TV producers think a small British town looks like.

Timmy is 18 or so, skinny, kinda anaemic-looking in that way which is supposed to be attractive to middle-aged women. Assessment: low threat.

He’s chasing after his dog. The camera lingers on the opening of an old well as he passes it, and a minor note creeps into the background music. Assessment: future plot point.

Suddenly, Timmy comes across a clearing, and there, lit up vividly by the kind of sunlight that _doesn’t really happen in England_ , but it’s fiction, okay, he’ll let it slide – there’s Lady de Sodermore, wrapped in a passionate embrace with John, the gardener.

The camera skips to Lord and Lady de Sodermore at lunch, servants serenely bobbing around them.

“New perfume, dear?” Lord de Sodermore asks his wife.

Lady de Sodermore starts, and unsubtly sniffs the inside of her wrist, where John’s hands had been.

Buck scowls at the screen. Illogical.

Steve plops down next to him. “I was wondering when you’d discover TV.”

“We had TV in the USSR, asshole.”

“I was wondering when you’d discover _good_ TV,” Steve clarifies. He pauses for a minute as John passes by the window, casting a burning glance inside, towards the object of his affection. “I see you still haven’t.”

“Fuck you, Rogers.”

-

He’s in the cage again. The minute he sees it, he knows it. It sends his brain skittering in a fucking riptide of nausea and rage and disgust and fear and fear and fear and _what the fuck have you got to be scared about, sweetheart, Asset, butcher, you know full fucking well what happens next and you have no fucking right to be scared, no right no right no right-_

Bucky looks up, gasping for breath, the keys to the cage slipping in his sweat-slicked palm. He can hear the girl crying behind him, knows he’ll turn to find her hunched over on herself, dirty-faced, frock torn, because he knows what happens next, fuck, he knows-

Steve is standing on the other side of the bars. He’s looking in with horror on his face, and Buck realises with a sudden sickening jolt that Steve knows what’s going to happen next too, that they’ve told him, that they’re going to make him do it with Steve watching-

When Buck wakes, he’s shaking, so hard he thinks he might fall apart, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. He rolls onto his front, presses his face into the pillow.

He has to bite down on his forearm to keep himself from screaming.

-

The Asset is on the steps outside when he abruptly realises the scenery isn’t familiar. The insides of his head feel like slashed wires, sparks firing at random, memories flickering below the surface – calm faces saying _Soldat. Comply_. Calm faces with their throats torn out.

Assessment: malfunction.

There are hills in the distance, violet and green against bluish-grey clouds. Beautiful.

 _Irrelevant_ , the Asset thinks irritably.

The climate is temperate and the foliage indicates early Spring. Judging by temperature and plant life, temporary assessment is Europe. Possibilities: Germany/Belgium/Britain/southern Scandinavia. More information required.

There’s a lit cigarette in his hand. The Asset takes a drag to see if it’ll help. It doesn’t.

A clatter as the door opens and a blond man walks out. He’s huge, 6’2” at the very least, heavily muscled, unarmed, but – a momentary flare of concern as the Asset realises he’s unarmed too. He’s wearing striped pyjamas and no shoes. Completely inadequate for combat. Assessment: high risk.

He’s on his feet. The man is staring at him.

“Bucky?” he says. American-accented English. Something familiar about the face.

“Who’s Bucky,” the Asset says.

Suddenly the blond man looks real fuckin’ sad.

-

Standing in the bathroom, Buck makes the mistake of looking in the mirror.

Sometimes it’s okay, just a face like any other, but today – today’s one of those days where every time Steve says _Bucky_ it sets off that fuckin’ roulette wheel inside his head (Asset/BarnesJamesBuchanan/murderer/rapist go on fucking say it _fucking say it made their parents watch to break them fucking say it-_ ) so he should know better, but unfortunately shaving blind ain’t one of the skills covered in HYDRA 101. So.

So he’s looking in the mirror, and cold brainwashed eyes are looking back at him, and.

 _This is how you create a living ghost_.

The bruise on his cheekbone is nearly gone.

_This one will make you feel like your skin’s being boiled off, piz’da, but the boys down in vivisection think it’ll do wonders for your healing speed._

His lips aren’t as chapped as they were when Steve first brought him in.

_Pretty boy, such a pretty boy, lips like a fucking girl, think they’d look so good stretched around my-_

There’s a clatter as Buck drops the razor. Suddenly, he finds himself braced against the sink, gasping for breath, so short of it his vision’s whiting out-

“Buck?” It’s Steve’s voice at the door, quietly concerned. _Asset/murderer/rapist,_ Buck’s brain spits back.

“Buck, you okay?” Steve draws into the bathroom, concern more obvious now, but Buck’s brain is stuck in that spiral, down down down and he knows, he fuckin’ _knows_ what’s waiting at the bottom, and he can’t – he can’t

“Hey, Buck –“ 

Steve’s hand is on his shoulder, placed there so slowly and gently that he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t have time, and suddenly Buck finds himself looking into Steve’s eyes, his face sad and concerned and affectionate all at once. Steve doesn’t say anything, just puts a hand on Buck’s other shoulder, and then - slowly, slowly, in a way that says _you can say no, it’s okay, you can stop me_ \- draws him into a hug

“Thought HYDRA would’ve at least taught you how to shave, Buck.” Steve’s voice is a comforting rumble in his chest.

Buck barks out a laugh. And suddenly he’s no longer in a basement in Irkutsk or in cage where a small figure hunches over in tears, he’s just here in this bathroom, his face pressed into Steve’s shoulder.

-

“Fucking bullshit! Fucking _cunts_!”

The commander goes red in the face when he screams. Natasha stands impassively against the wall, back straight. She gets the feeling slouching would be a bit too much of a giveaway for how very few fucks she gives for all this fucking melodrama.

Spitting curses, the commander sweeps a pile of papers from the desk, and gives an incoherent howl. The clerk sitting behind the desk looks at him impassively. _Fucking really?_ his face seems to say.

“I’m sorry sir,” the clerk says, in the stiff, formal Russian of someone who isn’t quite fluent. “Due to recent incidents, Kabul has been a no-fly zone for non-military personnel for three weeks now. If you need to leave, the land borders are-“

“I don’t fucking need to _leave_!” the commander shrieks. Nat feels a distant urge to roll her eyes. All things considered, she figures Barnes actually came out pretty well-balanced, considering he had to put up with this bullshit for seventy-odd years. _Russians._ Even other Russians hate ‘em.

“You.” The commander rounds on her. “Have you cross-checked this fucker’s flight records?”

“Yes, sir,” Nat says. She shoots the clerk a sour look, just to be careful. “We had agents personally check the passengers on every military flight. Barnes and his known associates were not present”.

The commander pauses and nods his thanks, and Nat feels a flicker of pleasure at a lie well told. The older man turns and gives a chair a vicious kick.

-

“What is this.”

“It’s hot chocolate. And this is a blanket.”

“Why.”

Steve tries not to pull a face. Sam has sent him about twenty leaflets about self-care and self-soothing and the self after trauma, and none of them mentioned that convincing ex-Soviet death machines to do anything other than be miserable is a _total pain in the ass_.

“Because,” he says, “earlier you cried because we were out of milk and HYDRA didn’t do dairy products” – for a moment Buck looks like he might cry again, but Steve ploughs on – “and then you had a panic attack because of a bird outside-“

“It was small and defenceless,” Buck says.

“Buck. You are _having a bad day_. And watching crappy TV and drinking hot chocolate will make you feel better than lying in bed and listening to screamy death music.”

“If it was good enough for Johnny Cash-“

Steve gives him his best death glare. It’s about as effective as a death glare from Bambi.

“ _Passions_ is on. Timmy is stuck down the well. And we’re going to sit here and watch him find some stupid way of getting out until you no longer feel like crying because of dairy products.”

Buck hesitates, but eventually, comes over, and flops down close enough for Steve to feel the warmth of his skin. Steve firmly puts the hot chocolate in his hands, and draws the duvet round them in a way that brooks no argument.

“ _Passions_ isn’t crappy TV, asshole,” Buck mutters.

-

“Buck, do you, uh. Do you have any dog-related trauma at all?”

Bucky puts the cereal box down and gives Steve a level look.

“’Morning Buck’,” he deadpans. “’Nice weather today Buck.’ ‘How’s your trauma today, Buck.’”

Steve fights back the urge to smile (or maybe cry, or maybe dance a jig, who knows), because Assets don’t do sarcasm. Buck always did, though. More than was ever really necessary, but he can work with that. “Answer the question,” he says.

Buck points at him with his spoon. “Your bedside manner needs some serious fuckin work, champ, was that your idea of being subtle?”

“Well?”

“Are you getting us a _dog._ ”

“I’m not getting us a dog. Answer the question.”

“You’re a fuckin’ terrible liar, Stevie.” Buck takes a mouthful of cereal. Swallows. “What kind of dog is it?”

There’s a long pause. Buck raises his eyebrows.

“It’s a collie,” Steve says in defeat.

A hint of a smile appears at the corners of Buck’s mouth. “Nope. No collie-related trauma. Don’t go getting us a Chihuahua though.”

“Why, were you traumatised by Chihuahuas?”

“No, I just think they’re fuckin’ stupid.”

-

Buck’s sitting on the couch when he hears the door and a skitter of claws on the hall floor and has to fight down the anxiety, because _of course_ there’s fuckin dog-related trauma, fuck what he tells Steve – then there’s a thump, and the sound of Steve saying “No, Lassie, that’s not-“

And then the dumbest fuckin’ dog he’s ever seen comes charging into the room with one of Steve’s shoes in its mouth. The dog sees him and pauses – the anxiety rises a little further, because animals can sense evil, they can, he knows they can-

But it doesn’t have time to spiral, because the collie comes barrelling up to him in a tangle of ill-coordinated limbs and big brown eyes and some seriously fuckin’ _puffy_ ears, leaps on to the couch, puts Steve’s shoe in his lap, and makes itself flat, tail wagging manically.

-

When Steve makes it through to the sitting room (after stowing away dog food and dog toys and dog leashes and _why do dogs need so much stuff_ ), he finds Bucky with his arms around the collie, his face buried in its fur as the dog stares intently at the ceiling lamp, a look of confusion on its face.

“Steve. Champ.” The note of exasperation in Buck’s voice catches him. “Please tell me you haven’t called this fuckin’ dog _Lassie_.”

“Lassie is a great name for a dog,” Steve says, nonplussed.

Buck raises his head from Lassie’s fur and glares at him. His eyes are a little red, but Steve decides not mention it.

“Thank fuck no-one’s ever let you name a child, Captain Imagination.”

-

(Steve did get to name a child once)

(He called it James)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I just wanted them to get a dog, ok, leave me alone
> 
> 2\. Needed a TV show for them to watch. Couldn't resist making it 'Passions' from Buffy. 
> 
> 3\. It's my personal headcanon that HYDRA made Buck do worse things than killing people, so.
> 
> 4\. Thanks for all the comments <3
> 
> Oh, also, 5. OK, OK, just imagine it, Steve gets to name a kid - like maybe he's at a rally or event or something and this woman just ambushes him and is like NAME MY CHILD, and Steve's totally flustered so he just picks the first name he can think of, which is James. And then like a year later, this woman realises her kid is named after a HYDRA death machine and is like >:( And then lawsuits.


	12. Dartmoor, England - part iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit, folks, sorry for the delay in posting, my first couple of weeks back at uni have been totally kicking my ass. Enjoy!

So, here’s a thing (or several).

Buck’d always been real fond of dogs, even though deep down he liked cats better and neither he nor Steve ever had the money to keep either. He liked ‘em – Steve knew it the same way he knew Buck had dark hair. He liked to stop dog walkers on the street to chat (“Get that fuckin’ guy,” he used to say to Steve after “Kept trying to talk to me when I just wanted to say hi to the dog”). He liked stashing away scraps of his dinner to feed Mrs. Richie’s ugly old mutt downstairs, always laughed like a little kid at the way it got so goddamn excited to see him.

Here's another thing. Even though he’d never admit it, company and physical contact make Buck _better_. Steve can see it in the way Buck shuffles through to the kitchen when the nightmares are bad, white-faced, in the way his hand on Buck’s shoulder makes the shaking let off.

Here’s a third. After upwards of a month without a haircut, Steve was looking a bit shaggier than he was really comfortable with (‘golden retriever’ isn’t a good look, okay, no matter what the internet says), so he went down to see Ellen in the village, and Ellen likes to chat whilst she’s cutting hair, and that’s how Steve came to find out that Lisa at the Co-op, her daughter-in-law’s just got this puppy and she can’t deal with it at all, it’s completely mental and she’s only got a little council flat, right, and she’s got two kids and all and it’s just _too much_. And one thing led to another, and now Steve is sitting watching Lassie repeatedly mashing her head into the living room carpet.

“Lassie,” Steve says. Lassie ignores him in favour of glaring at the carpet. After a second’s silence, she growls quietly, and head-butts the floor again, attacking something only she can see.

“ _Lassie_ ,” Steve says again, trying to ignore the note of desperation in his voice. The dog gives a high-pitched whine, and tries to bite the floor.

“It’s the shadows.”

Buck is standing in the door, drying his hair with a hand towel. It’s long enough now that it’s past his shoulders – he’ll have to start tying it back soon. Well, if that wouldn’t mess with his moody I-am-literally-the-Grudge aesthetic.

It’s been a week since Bucky finally graduated from pyjamas and started wearing actual clothes, and even though he complains about how stupid civilian clothes are (“These are _highly unsuitable_ for combat.” “That’s the point, Buck.”), he looks _good_. He goes for basics, straight-leg black jeans, white tees, unflashy stuff that shows off his face, his body, more or less the kind of thing he would’ve worn in the 30s if it had been around.

He looks good, even though the jeans are baggier than they should be and his shoulders still hunch a bit under the shirts. He looks good.

“Take a photo, Stevie, it’ll last longer.” Steve jerks back to reality and sees that Buck is giving him a smirk. “You were having a good stare there, champ.”

“Sorry. Sorry, I, uh, I zoned out.”

“That’s my job,” Bucky says absent-mindedly. He pads over to Lassie, squats down, and puts one hand under her jaw, makes her look at him. “C’mon, asshole, there’s nothing there. You shouldn’t engage with your hallucinations much, it gives ‘em power. I know, I read it in a leaflet.”

Lassie likes Buck. Steve doesn’t know why, since Buck doesn’t walk her or feed her and calls her _asshole_ more than he uses her actual name, but there you have it. The dog wiggles closer to Buck in her funny, lop-sided way, and puts her head in his lap, tail swishing. Steve manages to catch a glimpse of Buck’s smile before it disappears.

“S’the shadows,” Buck says without looking up. He swooshes one hand over the carpet, leaving a skid mark where the threads have been pushed out of place. “Collies spook real easy, they’re always chasing shadows ‘n’ shit. S’normal.”

Lassie jerks her head out of his lap, growls, and jumps nose-first onto the mark Buck’s just made.

“Normal, huh,” Steve says.

Lassie barks. The sound is muffled by the carpet.

“She’s just got issues,” Buck says. He twists round and pushes Lassie over, makes snapping motions at her face with his good hand, and Lassie twists and rolls on the floor as if this is _the best fucking game ever oh my god_. “Haven’t you. _Haven’t you_.”

Lassie responds to the tone of his voice and squirms back onto Buck’s lap, tail wagging furiously, trying to climb up his chest to lick his face as Buck snickers and tries to push her away. He looks normal, Steve realises, the same way Buck woulda looked playing with some dumbass dog back in Brooklyn, and he just sits back and watches them until Buck catches sight of his expression and stops.

“What?” he says.

-

“Maybe that clerk, that _fuckhole_ in the office, maybe he was right about the land borders-“

“Unlikely.” Nat maintains the neutral monotone the commander is used to hearing from her by now, but he still gives her a suspicious glance. Makes sense. Second-in-command means more questions about her background (or lack thereof), more questions about her Russian (just a little too perfect for someone who isn’t meant to be a native speaker). She knows this persona is wearing thin. Talk about doing your job too well.

“Here.” She fishes a piece of paper from the chaos of the desk drawers, puts it in front of the commander. “We’ve found sixteen kills which we’re sure are the Asset’s work, and we have eyewitnesses.” Pause. The commander eyes the photos on the page in front of him, taking in the mangled bodies the way you might look at a carpet you were thinking of buying. “He’s unstable. Malfunctioning. Our eyewitnesses say he was talking to himself, seeing things. He won’t have been in any fit state to travel cross-country without drawing attention to himself. Land borders are a nightmare at the moment what with increased Taliban activity in Kandahar. We would’ve heard.”

This argument is weak, and they both know it.

Once an identity has started to fail, Nat knows there’s no point trying to shore it up.

You can control the way it falls apart, though.

“Of all the flights that left that week,” she ploughs on, “the ones headed to Britain are the most likely. There’s more of them, and the UK has weaker border security than the US. The UK is our next port of call.”

She makes the tone of her last sentence arrogant, certain, but forcibly casual. A double agent trying to sell him a false location.

 _I should’ve taken drama,_ Nat thinks. _I’d make a killing on Broadway._

The commander’s eyes flick up to meet hers, and then back down to the paper. He sighs, pulls another sheet towards him, examines the list of flights on it.

“What about this one here?”

“Australia?” Natasha injects a note of alarm into her voice, lets the commander see a split-second panic before her face becomes neutral again. “Well, we can send some agents to search the area, sir, but it seems unlikely.”

“Why so?”

“Would _you_ want to go to Australia?”

This is even weaker, a non-argument. A soundbite.

The commander’s lips tighten, and he turns away. “A fair point, agent. We’ll likely send you and the section 4 team to Britain to carry out recon.” _And to be shot in the back of the head and buried in a shallow grave just outside Wigan, no doubt_.

“And Australia?”

“I don’t think we need to worry ourselves about Australia,” he says. Patronising. And lying.

“Good choice, sir,” Nat says, relief transparent in her voice.

There’s a smirk playing around the commander’s lips. “You may go, agent.”

Outside the office door, Nat allows herself a small smile. _Fucking Broadway, I swear to god._

-

Lassie is small for a collie. Her tail is too big for her body. Her ears are too big. Her eyes are _definitely_ too big, that shit should be illegal, okay.

She chases her tail. She falls over a lot. She stares at shadows and carpets and reflections and barks at the fridge and hates pencils.

She’s the dumbest fuckin’ dog Buck’s ever met and no he is _not_ in love with her, ok, don’t give me that soppy shit.

He pads through the kitchen to the hall, glancing out the windows as he goes. Nice day. Mist hiding the hilltops from view. Lassie’s claws skitter on the tiles behind him. Absent-mindedly, Buck takes a cube of cheese and tosses it over his shoulder, hear a snap as she tries to catch it, fails. There’s a small mountain of the cubes in the palm of his hand. Snacking and dairy products were both discouraged by HYDRA, so this is like therapy and should totally be encouraged, right? Right.

In the hall, he peers at the muddy lead hanging from the coat hook. Something about it makes him faintly nauseous – _sharpenedhook/razorwire/clipschainscollars/protocol breach/assessment:punishment_ – but he grits his teeth, ignores it. Tosses more cheese to the dog.

He considers.

Buck hasn’t actually been outside the house yet. Mostly he hasn’t wanted to – it’s difficult enough to deal with voices coming out of the fuckin’ shower drain and shit, okay, he doesn’t want to deal with having a panic attack in Tesco or whatever. Plus he’s done small English towns before and he knows they’re shit.

But still. Buck fingers the lead, thinking. Lassie notices, sidles up to him and puts her paws on his knees, round-eyed, with an expression that says _plsplspls_.

“Whatcha doin, Buck?” Steve is emerging from his bedroom, sketchbook in hand. Buck wonders what he’s even got left to draw.

“I, uh. I was.” Words are still hard, stumbling over themselves on the way out of his mouth. Buck bites back his frustration and tries again. “I was thinking of taking dumbass here out for a walk.”

There’s a long silence. Huh. Buck turns to look at Steve, who is standing there with an uncomfortable expression on his face.

“Buck, I.” Steve says, then stops. _Starting to sound like me,_ Buck thinks, trying to ignore the uneasiness beginning to prickle at the back of his neck. The silence stretches between them.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Steve says, finally.

“What’re you really saying here, champ,” Buck says. “Are you saying you don’t think it’s a good idea, or that you won’t let me?”

Steve meets his eyes, then looks away.

“Fuck.” Buck turns away, lip curling. Lassie whines at him, and he brushes the remaining cheese onto the floor for her. It’s pretty hard to have an argument balancing a small mountain of Red Leicester in your palm.

“Ya know, it would’ve been nice of you to _tell_ me I wasn’t allowed to leave,” he says.

He hears Steve shift and sigh behind him. “Buck, it’s not like that.”

“Then what.”

He hears a rustle as Steve approaches, and spins round to face him. Them reflexes ain’t going away anytime soon.

“Then _what is it like_ , Steve,” he says.

Steve looks stricken. For some reason that makes Buck even angrier.

“Fuck this,” he snaps. “ _Fuck this_. So how long were you planning on keeping me here, huh? Can’t imagine your pals at SHIELD or UNIT or whatever bullshit organisation’s ass you’re kissing now, can’t they’re much interested in letting me leave either. What, you were just gonna keep me here until I wasn’t too delicate for their fuckin’ affections? Hand me over for _questioning_ and _retraining_ the minute I stopped seeing things crawling out of the walls?”

“Buck, that’s not how it is.”

“Then _how the fuck is it_ , hotshot,” Buck snarls. There’s a part of him deep down that knows this is irrational, knows that all this anger isn’t for Steve, not really, but it doesn’t matter. He’s got a familiar cornered-animal feeling, his heart pounding, right hand twitching, left hand still.

There’s another silence as Steve struggles, trying to find the right words. His face is all open concern. “Buck, pal, you need some time off.”

Buck takes a step closer so that they’re inches apart, gets up in Steve’s face. “I’ve _had_ some time off.”

Steve doesn’t back away, just looks down into his face. “You need more.”

Buck balls his hands into fists, standing there staring Steve down. Two dogs challenging each other.

“Fine,” he says eventually. “Fuckin’ _fine_.”

-

Natasha is lounging on the windowsill when the commander comes into her room.

“Good evening, agent.”

She hears a shuffle of feet outside the door, and sighs. So this is it, huh?

“Oh, fucking _spare_ me,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

Nat swivels off the windowsill and straightens up, mind going to her weapons and escape routes. “You’ve got a squad out there, at least six men, special ops from what I saw of the uniform before you closed the door – you know, you should teach them to stand back, rookie errors like that can really ruin a moment for you.”

There’s a pause.

“We know who you’re working for,” the commander says.

Natasha laughs. “No, you don’t.”

“Don’t play games with me, you little bitch. We _know_ you’ve been sent by the Americans.” He takes a step forward, a nasty smile playing across his lips. “My team outside are going to take you and make you wish you’d never been born. They’re going to enjoy it. Draw it out. Take a video and send it to your mother.”

“He’d probably enjoy that.”

She edges sideways, keeping her back to the wall, considering her options. The commander watches her, amusement in his eyes.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Ms. Romanov.”

Window. It’s gonna be the window. Natasha surreptitiously backs into a better position.

“You know I’m going to take your jet, right.”

He laughs. “Think whatever you like. Despite your _pathetic_ dissembling – really, I expected better, considering your record – we _know_ the Asset was on that flight. A crack team is heading to Melbourne as we speak, and I will be joining them tomorrow. You, unfortunately, will be otherwise engaged.”

Whip-quick, the movements smooth and well-practiced, Nat flicks the pistol from her shoulder holster and shoots, aiming to miss. The bullet thuds into the wall an inch to the left of the commander’s head.

Rage blooms on his face, and he seizes his own gun – “You little _cunt_ ” – and shoots, shattering the window.

Natasha gives him a level look. “Thank you.”

The actions are as familiar to her as a dance routine now. As the door slams open and the team outside spills in, Nat shoots out the light, crouches, lets a thimble-sized canister ( _God bless Tony Stark_ ) slip from her sleeve and roll towards the agents, oozing tear gas as it goes – she’s under a no-unnecessary-kills order, but that doesn’t mean she can’t make things _uncomfortable_ – dives backwards, drops from the window and disappears into the night.

She does take the jet.

It’s pretty great.

-

“So how long were you planning on keeping this cosy fuckin’ act going, huh-“

“Until you’re _better_ , Buck!”

“I’m not gonna fuckin’ get better-“

“You will-“

“No, you don’t fuckin’ understand, that’s not how trauma works. I might get better at functioning, but you’re not gonna undo what happened. I’m never gonna be the guy I was back in ’32.”

A pause. Rain drums against the windows. There’s something sad in Steve’s expression.

“You could be.”

“No, I fucking couldn’t.”

“Buck, you can’t just go, you’re-“

“I’m a fucking criminal, I know.”

“We have _brainwashing protocols_ ,” Steve snaps. It’s the first time he’s shown proper anger, Buck thinks, a flush creeping up his neck and his fists clenched at his sides. A distant part of him realises that this is the closest he and Steve have been to each other in forever without one of them trying to kill the other. A distant part of him feels a wash of sadness. “You’re not going to be punished for something you were forced to do. This isn’t about imprisoning you, it’s about taking care of you.”

“Whether I like it or not,” Buck snaps back.

“You’re a goddamn _mess_ , Buck! You need trigger warnings for oven timers!”

“Wrapping me in cotton wool ain’t gonna make me less of a mess, champ.”

“You go out there, you’re not gonna cope.”

“Fucking spare me, Rogers.”

-

Buck spends the night pacing in his room. Steve doesn’t try to come and calm him down, which is probably good, all things considered.

He stalks to the window, and back to the bed. He lights a cigarette and smokes it far too quickly, because _fuck_ Steve and his fancy fuckin’ house.

He wants a drink. He wants a whole fuckin’ lot of drinks. Wants to empty the bottle and shatter it against the wall.

Back in the 30s Buck would’ve taken it out on something, some inanimate object, except it’s _not_ the 30s and now he’s a fuckin’ cybernetically enhanced Soviet-made killing machine and if he punched a wall he’d probably take the whole fuckin’ thing down and _fuck this fuck this fuck this_.

-

In the morning, he’s gone.

Of course he is.

Steve finds his bedroom empty and knows. He paces through the rest of the house, calling his name, checking every room, but no. Nothing.

A rucksack is missing from the hall, along with Buck’s toothbrush, some clothes, and his heavy-duty boots, so it’s not like he’s just gone out for a walk. Steve checks his wallet later, only to find that all his money, his passport, and his credit card have all disappeared. Instead, the wallet simply contains his damn coffee rewards cards and a note – written in Buck’s achingly familiar, untidy scrawl – that just says “sorry not sorry”.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got a couple of filler chapters (might post them both at once), and then a 5k monster chapter in which these two dumbasses are reunited in a more satisfying manner, so no worries, this isn't a long separation.


	13. Interlude: Dartmoor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> urgh fuck guys, sorry it's been so long. To be completely honest, my mental health has been in the fucking toilet recently, and my heart hasn't really been in writing this. I'm uploading two baby chapters tonight, then a fucking monster chapter whenever I get it finished (soon!), and hopefully that will make up for it a bit.

Halfway through the next week, Steve trudges into the kitchen to find Natasha perched on one of the high chairs at the counter, sipping a coffee, looking for all the world like she’s _meant_ to be there.

By now he’s had so many of these little unplanned visits that he’s not even surprised; just grateful she hadn’t been sitting on the end of his bed.

“Sam promised me he wouldn’t tell you where this place was,” he grumbles, opening the fridge and reaching for the milk.

“And he didn’t,” Nat says.

She’s cut her hair short; it suits her. Steve pads over to the coffee machine and pours himself a cup. Adds milk. Stirs. “I wish you’d stop signing off your texts with that winky face.”

“Why would I do that when it makes you so uncomfortable?”

Steve sits.

“You know he’s gone.”

“Of course.” Nat’s expressionless. “Which really begs the question - why aren’t you? We need you back stateside. We’ve got death robots in Kentucky.”

“Did Tony build them.”

“Answer the question, Steve.”

“I.” Steve huffs a sigh, scrubs one hand through his hair. “I needed some time off.” Suddenly, a thought occurs to him. “Why are _you_ here? I thought you were doing something morally questionable in Khartoum.”

Nat gives him her sweetest smile. It’s good to see her, Steve realises. Whilst having Buck back is – has been – all kinds of good, the kind of good that sits warm as whiskey in the pit of his stomach, he can’t deny that it’s been _hard_ , having no-one to talk to who’s 100% there. Trauma is tiring. Misery is tiring.

“Nah, I was doing something morally questionable in Afghanistan,” Natasha’s saying. “Undercover with a group of Russian bounty hunters. Hunting your runaway boyfriend, in fact.”

Steve’s stomach twists through a sickening loop. “What?”

“Relax, we didn’t get anywhere near him.” Natasha lounges back in the chair, coffee in hand. “Russian secret service has really gone downhill since its KGB days. When I left they were en route to Melbourne, convinced he was hiding in a made-up secret base in the middle of the outback.” She pauses, checks her watch. “They should be in a desert just about now.”

“Why’s Russian secret service after Buck?”

“Come on, Steve, why _wouldn’t_ Russian secret service be after him?”

“You might have a point.”

Nat rolls her eyes. “This time specifically, he took out one of their cells back in Volgograd. They’re not pleased.”

“But why were you there?”

“CIA’s pretty keen on getting Barnes back too.”

“So your job is hunting him down,” Steve says sourly.

Natasha gives him a wry smile. “Unfortunately, my cover got busted, so I’m off the case.”

A rush of relief and affection pools in Steve’s stomach. God bless Nat and her dubious allegiances. And her twisted sense of humour. He thinks of a group of Russian spies in Australia, trying to find a bunker that doesn’t exist, and has to bite back a laugh.

They drink their coffee in silence for a bit, watching the mist on the distant hills.

 “Do you know where he is?” Steve asks eventually. “I don’t even know where to start looking.”

“My advice? Don’t.” Steve looks up in surprise, finds Nat watching him impassively. “He’s not a kid, Steve.”

“I know that, but-“

“No-one likes to be in an unequal relationship-“ - Steve opens his mouth, but she cuts him off – “friendship, whatever. Barnes doesn’t want you to be his nurse.”

“Will you help me find him?” Steve says quietly.

“No,” Nat replies. “Sorry. Not unless it looks like he’s going to become a threat.”

Steve takes a sip of his coffee, trying to keep his face blank.

“Look, Steve,” Natasha leans across the table towards him, letting her poker-face slip a bit. It’s intentional, Steve knows that, but he appreciates the thought. “I know how badly you want him back, but he’s an adult. Give him time. Once he’s got his head straight, he’ll probably come to you.” 


	14. Interlude: London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my home town, yo!

This is a cold city.

The rain soaks into Buck’s skin, and for a moment he thinks of kind faces in a park in Tabriz, smoke and poetry curling up into the dark. For a moment, he misses it.

He stands on Millenium Bridge and lets the people rush by like water.

There’s still that feeling in his head, that feeling of slashed wires, thoughts lurching to and fro, flickering out of nowhere, but – better. Better. Just a bit. Bucky tightens his hands against the cold, wet railings, and thinks of Steve. Steve bouncing back up, bloody-nosed, fists raised to a guy much bigger than he was. Steve dancing clumsily with a girl at Fitzsimons’s in Brooklyn, stumbling over his own feet; Buck remembers standing at the edge of the dancefloor, smiling. But sad, too, for whatever queer fuckin’ reason, double meaning very much intended. _Anyway._ Steve at the docks. Steve in class. Steve quietly tapping on the door of his bedroom and sticking his head round, concern in his eyes.

A dead body writhes to the forefront of his mind, face purple, bloody vomit trailing from the corner of its mouth. Buck grits his teeth and forces it away. No.

_None of this looney-tunes shit, sweetheart. That’s the whole point of this little misery trip._

He picks out the memories like pebbles, uses them to shore himself up, bit by bit by bit. He thinks of him and Steve sharing a tent, back when they were still travelling round with the Howlies, sleeping back to back. Thinks of Steve laughing. Thinks of his arm across Steve’s shoulders. Steve on the news, looking like a rabbit in the goddamn headlights.

Buck takes a deep breath.

The thoughts kindle a tiny, spreading warmth in the pit of his stomach.

A guy in a business suit barges into him and rushes on without apologising, coffee in hand. Bucky glares at his retreating back.

-

He goes into the cathedral, waiving the entrance fee by telling the guy at the door he’s there to pray. He stands there with the tourists flowing round him and looks up at the statues, sees the saints and apostles looking down at him with their blank stone faces. Wonders what they see.

-

There’s a crazy guy on the tube. He’s shouting, yelling incomprehensibly, lurching round and round, wild-eyed, caught in a circle of enemies that only he can see. Buck looks at his tattered clothes, his tangled hair, the stump where his left arm should be. Tries not to identify.

The other commuters stare at their papers, books, iPods, Kindles, pointedly ignoring the man. Despite the number of people in the carriage, the only noise is the shriek of the rails.

This is a cold city.

-

He ghosts through Borough Market, sending the pigeons waddling away in panic, listening to the cries of the shopkeepers echoing from the underside of the bridge overhead. Somehow Buck doesn’t feel out of place, as if he isn’t the only ghost there.

-

He walks along the South Bank, the grey water of the Thames rushing along to his left.

-

He stands by Parliament, looks up at Big Ben. Huh.

A cyclist swerves around him, sends a volley of swearwords his way.

-

Convent Garden. Camden Loch. The fuck does a city need with so many markets?

-

He breaks into an empty building off Trafalgar Square and sleeps there, taking pleasure in stubbing out his smokes on the expensive white carpet. He trails out into the suburbs, wanders through the grimy streets of Croydon, stays a couple nights in a squat in Peckham. Goes to Brixton and stands still, letting the noise wash over him.

-

He moves on. He moves on.


	15. Belfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update this. I got sidetracked (/obsessed) with a couple of other things, and I'm not a good enough writer to be able to force myself to go back to something when there's other stuff on my mind (how the fuck do people do this for a living???)
> 
> Also, this chapter is set in Belfast and does include some pretty ugly sectarian language and references, so please read responsibly. That city left its fingerprints all over me. 
> 
> Oh, also, NSFW.

Steve’s lying on his bed when FRIDAY lets him know he has a guest. He’d taken Lassie out with him on his run that morning, and apparently ten miles at supersoldier speed had maybe, just maybe been enough to tire her out, because now she’s sleeping on the floor, sprawled in a messy heap.

The past few months might have turned her less puppyish – she’s longer in the leg, her ears and paws no longer hilariously oversized compared to her body – but they sure haven’t made her into a better dog. Nor have endless sessions in the park (“Sit. Lassie, sit. Sit. _Sit._ No, that’s the opposite of what I wanted you to do. Goddamnit.”) or any of the hyper-expensive trainers Tony brings in just for shits and giggles.

Thor loves her. Bruce _had_ loved her until she unexpectedly thought she saw a VERY DANGEROUS HIGH RISK HIGH RISK shadow on his labcoat and nearly caused a code green. Tony remains severely unimpressed (“Oh god, and I thought you couldn’t _get_ any more whole-grain all-star American, Cap, first that goddamn bike and now this, this is _embarrassing_ ”), but supports anything that makes Steve – quote-unquote – less of a “greasy emo kid”.

Steve sighs and sits up.

It’s hard. Can’t pretend it isn’t. Shoot, he’d miss Buck wherever he was, he’s _always_ missed him – but somehow it’s worse here. Being back in the States turns the sadness into something keen and aching and constant, something difficult to bear. Not that being back at Stark Tower 2.0 (new walls and windows courtesy of Loki, new floors and ceilings courtesy of Hulk) is all bad, of course not. Steve’s missed it, all of it – Tony’s hyperverbal, constant, slightly scary mania, Bruce’s quiet worrying, Clint and Nat’s mildly unhealthy back-and-forth, daggers tossed with frightening skill across the breakfast table, unexplained explosions from R&D. They’ve taken out badly-build Eastern European death robots in Kentucky, and a witch – that’s not politically incorrect, is it? – who was acting more than a little like she wanted to be a certain Norse chaos god’s kid sister, and it was _good_ , small-scale stuff with no collateral damage that Tony’s money couldn’t fix. It was good.

And yet.

There’s a knock at the door, and Natasha sticks her head around. Her hair’s almost grown back out and she’s started dying it red again.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

She lets herself in – Lassie looks up, lazily wags her tail – plops down in his armchair, and without preamble says “I know where he is.”

Steve sits bolt upright. “Wha- how?” A terrible thought occurs to him. “Has he..?”

Natasha gives him a smile he can’t read “No. He got in touch with me, actually. Apparently HYDRA and the KGB have the same ‘Secret Messages 101’ class.”

He gapes at her, something warm blossoming in his chest, heart going _buck-buck-buck_ and Lord would that thought be embarrassing if Tony knew about it - “I thought you weren’t gonna help me find him.”

“He asked me to tell you where he was, said he just needed some time to himself. Guess I should say ‘I told you so’.”

-

At the ferry terminal in Cairnryan, Steve’s phone buzzes. It’s Natasha.

_if anyone asks, you’re an atheist ;)_

He gives his phone a scowl, before texting back - _???_

_and if anyone asks which god you *don’t* believe in, say it’s the jewish one_

_but my ma was a catholic_

_steve honey no_

-

For once Steve isn’t going to even pretend to be interested in sightseeing, but walking from Belfast Central to his hotel, he sees some of the city anyway.

At first he thinks all the flags are cute.

The murals catch his eye. He sees a child as high as a building, squatting, a dove in her hands. There are two arrows through the dove’s breast. He sees politicians with their eyes left blank. He sees endless portraits of soldiers whose faces he doesn’t recognise. Birth dates. Death dates.

Walking down a side street, he finds an odd little enclosed garden, full of white stones, the walls black marble.  At the centre is a plaque that simply says IN PROUD MEMORY. Looking closer at the marble slabs, Steve realises they’re full of names, more than a hundred of them carved in fine white script. A memorial.

He scuffs along the painted kerbs quietly after that, stopping now and again to read the graffiti. _No taigs in our area. ACAB. Hoping for peace, ready for war. Don’t just shout IRA, join IRA. Cunts. Cowards. Scum._

Then he sees the first peace wall.

Suddenly the flags don’t seem so cute.

-

He sits for a long time on the edge of his hotel bed, phone in his hands, staring at the number Nat had given him. He types and deletes, types and deletes. It’s gotta be the modern equivalent of throwing scrunched up paper into the waste basket, right?

Eventually, he keeps it short. _hey buck. i’m here. can i see you?_.

He’s embarrassed by how hard his heart is pounding as he hits send.

Steve pauses, then adds _i brought the dog_

Five minutes later his phone buzzes.

_hey champ. 54 hill st, 9am tomorrow?_

-

Buck’s picked a coffee shop on the corner of a quiet, cobbled street – one without flags, Steve’s pleased to note. There’s a cathedral opposite.

Inside, the shop is quiet. It’s white-walled, dimly lit with old-style lightbulbs (Steve’s pretty sure they never actually had lightbulbs like that, you know, in the _actual olden days_ , but who is he to complain), price list written up on blackboards behind the counter.

His heart is pounding as he pushes open the door. Lassie is yanking him off to one side in determined pursuit of a _very suspicious_ pigeon, so he has to tug her in after him. He takes a moment to scan the shop, trying to breathe in a vaguely normal manner. _Pull yourself together, Rogers, this isn’t a first date. Not that you’ve had many of those._

“Y’alright there, pal,” the girl behind the counter says. “Can I getcha anything?”

It’s then that Steve sees him, sitting at the table by the window, hair tied back into a raggedy bun, leather jacket slung around his shoulders despite the summer heat, looking just as at home in this damn hipster coffee shop as the _furniture_ does –

“It’s okay,” Steve says faintly. “I’m meeting a friend.”

When Lassie catches sight of Buck she gives a frenzied whine and all but drags Steve across the shop to him, not leaving him any time to think it through, and then Buck’s putting down his coffee cup and grinning widely and saying _hey dumbass_ and ruffling her fur, and then he finally, finally looks up at Steve, and all the air goes out of the room.

“Buck,” he says breathlessly. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Buck replies, his eyes restlessly scanning Steve’s face. After a pause, he gets to his feet – cautiously, like he’s not sure it’s the right thing to do.

There’s a long moment of silence. Steve lets his eyes roam across Buck’s face, and finds no bruises, no grazes. Out of nowhere, he feels an urge to run his thumb along Buck’s cheekbone; he fights it off.

“C’mon pal,” Buck says finally, “there’s only so long you can keep this bullshit pseudo-sexual tension going. Gimme a hug so I can finish my fuckin’ coffee.”

At that Steve barks out a laugh and puts his arms round him, holds him close. Buck smells good, clean – always a good indicator that someone _isn’t_ currently having a psychotic break – and not entirely unfamiliar – smokes, coffee, something woodsy underneath.

They break apart, and he puts his hands on Buck’s shoulders.

“It’s good to see you.”

Buck pauses a moment, still scanning Steve’s face, dark eyes flicking to and fro.

“Thanks,” he says quietly. “It’s good to see you too. “

-

Steve leaves the (VERY EXCITED OH MY GOD OH MY GOD) dog with Buck, and goes up to order. To him, the list of items of the board behind the counter in no way represents the kind of things a coffee shop should sell, like, you know, _just plain old regular coffee_ , and he is also quite sure that the girl behind the counter shouldn’t be touching his hand this much. But he orders, and pays, and comes back with something that the girls assures him is normal coffee.

“I’m surprised you managed,” Buck says as he sits back down. “You know they got five kinds of milk that don’t come from cows?”

“So I saw.”

There’s a short silence. Steve decides to just dive in head-first.

“So…how are you?”

Buck shrugs with one shoulder. “Up and down.” He looks down at the table, worrying his sleeve with his fingertips. “S’hard sometimes, not gonna lie to you. But I’m okay.”

He pauses, and Steve takes the opportunity to examine him. Buck’s still thinner than he should be – he’s hiding it better with the clothes, but it’s still there. He’s pale and tired-looking, and his lips are chapped – trust Buck not to be a fan of lip balm – but his eyes aren’t bloodshot or unfocused, and the stubble around his jaw looks like it’s intentional, rather than an indication of imminent mental breakdown.

Suddenly Buck looks up, meets his gaze. “I’m sorry for running off in the middle of the night like that, I just – I just needed some time.”

“Buck, it’s fine,” – Steve wants to leap across the table and wrap him up in another hug to show him how very fine it is, but he resists the urge – “I’m sorry too. For – for not being straight with you.”

Buck quirks one eyebrow. “Natasha spoke to you, huh.”

“Yeah.” Steve abruptly remembers his coffee, and takes a gulp as he tries to figure out what to say. He thinks he prefers coffee which doesn’t _taste_ expensive. “I just. You were such a mess when we – when you got back. I was so worried about you.”

Buck does that one-shouldered shrug again. “I get it champ, but it’s like – s’like when baby birds are learning how to fly. Their parents have to push ‘em out of the nest and let them flail around for a bit and fuck up. Otherwise they ain’t gonna learn.” He pauses, then takes a quick gulp of coffee, ducking down to do it as if embarrassed by the euphemism.

“So you’re the baby bird in this context.”

Buck gives him a glare. “Excuse you, sweetheart, I’ll have you know that baby birds make fuckin’ great assassins,” he says.

Steve gives him a quizzical look.

“You never see ‘em coming.” He pauses, takes another sip of coffee. Meets Steve’s gaze levelly. “I’ve been here best part of three months. Hitched a lift to London after I bailed on you, came here via Liverpool. I ain’t got a job – oh shit, that reminds me.” Buck stops abruptly, and leans down to rummage in his bag. Finally, he draws out a small bundle containing a passport and several bank cards, and sheepishly slides them across the table.

Steve laughs as he takes them. “I got new ones, but thanks.”

“It’s a gesture of goodwill, asshole. Anyway. No job, figured it’d be too much risk, so I’ve been living off an account ‘tasha set up for me. The money’s siphoned off some private holding in Russia linked to some of the government’s sleazier dealings. She says it’s my pension.”

“You and Natasha have been talking a lot, then,” Steve says. He tries hard not to sound resentful.

“Yeah, well, I figure we kinda have some similar life experience” – Buck must catch the expression on Steve’s face, because he adds – “I _told_ her not to tell you anything, Stevie, you can’t blame her.” There’s another pause, and then, as if apologising, he offers – “I got a therapist. She’s nice, I guess.”

“Lord, Buck, what do you _tell_ her?” Steve finds himself laughing – Buck stares at him for a minute, then laughs too, and for a moment – just for a moment – seventy years is nothing at all.

-

Parting ways outside the shop, it’s Buck who pulls Steve into a hug, even if his shoulders are tense and he keeps his metal arm at his side. When they pull apart, there’s an awkward look on his face, the slightest hint of a frown round his eyes and at the corners of his mouth.

“Spit it out, Buck,” Steve says.

“I. Uh.” Buck looks down at Lassie (who is tugging at the lead, presumably in pursuit of an _extremely_ high-risk shadow), then back up. Suddenly, Steve realises that this is new – Buck hadn’t been able to do eye contact back in Dartmoor, had spoken to his knees and his chest instead of his face. “I don’t wanna – Stevie, I’m not planning on staying here forever, but I – I kinda have a life here, and. I don’t – I don’t wanna just drop it and come live in your apartment or some secure facility owned by Tony Stark-“

Steve tries his best to ignore the slight sinking feeling Buck’s speech gives him. “What _do_ you want?”

“I want –“ Buck pauses, licks his lips, looks away. “Uh, time, I guess. And, I don’t know, I want –“. He stops again and sighs, runs his hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t wanna go back to somewhere where you’re at home and I’m a stranger. Or, or a patient, or whatever. Not right away.” His eyes meet Steve’s self-consciously, almost shyly. “Does that make sense, Steve? I need to be somewhere we’re both strangers.”

“Sure thing, Buck.” It doesn’t make sense to Steve, not at first, but he says it anyway. “Sure thing.”

-

After that they fall into an awkward but easy rhythm of seeing each other every couple of days, meeting in bars (and Lord, had _that_ caused Steve some anxiety when Buck first suggested it) and coffee shops, walking Lassie round the city’s parks.

On Bucky-free days, Steve explores the city. The Titanic museum gives him a weird sense of déjà vu – because it was before his time, sure, but the framed, yellowing newspapers just look so _familiar_ – but he likes the gardens and the art gallery. One day he pays two quiet, older guys from a non-sectarian organisation to give him a tour of the city, and they take him on a muted walk through the outskirts, letting the barbed wire and the flags and the viciously angry graffiti speak for themselves.

He goes out into the countryside, takes day trips to Bushmills and Derry (“That’s _Londonderry_ ,” an older man snarls at him in the train station. Later, Steve texts Buck about it; Buck just tells him that it’s a good thing he missed July).

He feels like he’s constantly just the slightest bit high (not that he would know what _that_ feels like, of course) – colours seem brighter, and there’s a warm, rushing feeling in his chest, like laughter. He’s high on the look of Buck, on the smell of him, the tone of his voice. Now and again he catches himself imagining taking Buck and hugging him so tight that they become the same person.

-

Sometimes Buck likes to drag him into these little old-man pubs, tiny places where the regulars always give them funny looks. Steve can kind of see why. It’s the hush of it, the soft colours and warm wood, the grime, the smell of beer and cigarettes, despite the smoking ban – take away the TV in the corner, and you could be in the 30s again. Well, if you squint a whole lot.

So they’re sitting in one of the booths, Buck running his mouth (“I don’t mind the tin whistles ‘n’ shit in themselves, Steve, but they can’t play a tune worth a damn…”), and Steve suddenly thinks of him standing in that kitchen back in Dartmoor, barely able to meet his eyes, let alone sit in a pub and talk shit. Sure, Buck still stumbles over the odd word, falls into the kind of brooding silences that would make Heathcliff jealous, but the guy sitting in front of him isn’t a traumatised ghost. Hell, he doesn’t even look nervous.

He’s Bucky. Not an Asset, not a soldier. Sure, he might have the kind of PTSD that could traumatise a VA counsellor, but he’s still _him_.

“Stevie, we’re gonna have to talk about this staring thing, you’re catchin’ flies sitting there.”

“Sorry.” Steve’s face feels warm; he gives Buck a sheepish smile.

“So what was it you were thinking?” Buck says, idly toying with his glass. “Musta been real fuckin’ interesting to distract you from my sparkling conversation.”

“I was just thinking that you’re doing really well,” Steve says. Bucky gives him a quizzical look. “Buck, c’mon, what you’ve been through, it’s not – it’s not nothing. And I know – I know I’ve made the mistake of trying to wrap you in cotton wool before, and I’m not gonna try that again-“ (“Damn right,” Buck mutters) “-but I can’t lie, I wasn’t expecting to find you so…functional.”

“Thanks, sweetheart, that’s real charming.”

“How’d you do it? I mean, no offense, but before, when we found you, you weren’t, uh…” Steve trails off and gestures helplessly.

“I, uh.” Buck hesitates; when he speaks again, his voice is soft. “I knew I was gonna get to see you. If I did alright.”

Steve reaches across the table to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. He feels a faint glow of pride when Buck doesn’t flinch. “You’ve done more than alright, pal.”

Buck’s answering smile is half-hidden in his glass, but it’s his old lightning-quick grin all the same.

-

That night when Steve hugs him goodbye, he lingers on it, feeling the warmth and solidity of him, breathing him in. He knows he does this, holding Buck for just longer than is really normal, and he knows Buck must’ve noticed that he does it. But.

When Bucky eventually goes, he leaves behind an imprint of himself, a tingling ghost that Steve can feel on every inch of him that Buck has touched.

-

_i wanna go dancing_

The text comes through at 2am. By this point, Steve feels like he’s in a perpetual state of ???, so the request barely even registers as unusual.

 _but we need someone to watch the dog_ , he replies.

There’s a pause, then his phone buzzes twice in quick succession.

_are we fuckin ninety_

_wait don’t answer that_

Another slight pause, then one more comes through.

_we can put her in a box or something._

_that’s not how dogs work buck_

A long minute passes, then Steve texts back.

_I’ll find someone to watch her_

-

Steve would never admit it because it’s embarrassing as hell, but when Buck’d said dancing, he’d kinda envisioned… _dancing_ , you know? The smoky air and warm amber light and warm amber music that he remembers from the 30s. The bittersweetness of leaning back against the walls, watching Buck pick up dames, easy as anything. And yeah, deep down he _knew_ things’d changed, but still. He couldn’t help imagining.

So when Buck shoves him out of a taxi in what feels like a seedy part of down, and makes a _ta-da_ gesture in front of what _looks_ like an abandoned warehouse, heavy bass making the pavement vibrate, Steve just gapes.

There’s a sign over the door that says KREMLIN in chunky metal letters.

Right above it is a statue of Lenin.

“Buck, what-“

“It’s the best nightclub in Belfast, Stevie!” Buck says. “Besides, it makes me feel at home.”

The look of horror on Steve’s face must say more than words could, because Buck just about splits his sides laughing as he drags him inside. 

-

The inside of a nightclub, as it turns out, is sticky and noisy and full of flashing lights, and Steve is actually beginning to think that he preferred the Second World War to this because at least in trench warfare no-one is trying to grab your ass, mostly. He’s just peeled himself away from his seventh girl, with difficulty, and everyone is _extremely_ drunk and mostly people are sloppily kissing each other and-

“C’mon, this is easier.”

Before Steve knows what’s happening, there’s an arm on his waist, and suddenly Buck’s there and they’re dancing a clumsy two-step, kinda swaying back and forth.

“Buck, what are we..?”

“I thought you were actually gonna have an aneurysm if dames kept throwin’ themselves at you,” Buck says, giving him a sly grin. “How times change, huh?”

“But is it- it’s okay here?” Steve blurts, because even though he _knows_ it’s fine, it’s the 21 st century and things like this are fine now, in the 30s doing this in a regular bar could get you beaten to death, and that’s not the kind of thing you forget quickly.

“Okay?” Buck shouts over the music. “It’s fuckin’ _encouraged_.”

So they dance. Buck’s laughing at him because serum or no serum, Steve is a _terrible_ dancer, always has been, always will be, and it feels kind of _good_ , having Buck close to him, having his arms on his waist, body relaxed against his-

Steve’s thumbs are rubbing circles on Buck’s shoulder blades. He’s taking in the smell of him, burying his face in his hair, and he knows he shouldn’t be – deep down, he knows that this kinda thing isn’t what friends do, that the ice beneath his feet is whisper-thin, but he doesn’t stop. The music is so loud that he feels it more than hears it, a bass that comes rumbling up through the floor, vibrates in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly, Steve realises that it _is_ good for something, this darkness and noise, because despite all the faceless people around them, there’s no-one _watching_ them; it’s as if they’re alone. It makes him feel like maybe he’s faceless too, like he can hold Buck as close as he wants.

At some point, Buck draws back a bit and hesitates, licking his lips, looking at Steve with a strange expression. He reaches out and puts a hand to Steve’s face, thumb rubbing softly along his cheekbone, and everything has gone totally silent inside Steve’s head, despite the noise and the drunk, sweating people; it’s just him and Buck and this endless aching in his chest, in his throat, in the pit of his stomach.

Then Buck stretches up and kisses him.

It’s soft at first, the barest brush of lips against his, but it goes through him like an electric shock. Then Steve is gathering Buck to him, hands going to his waist, to the sides of his face, and Buck’s arms are slipping round him and Buck’s tongue is in his mouth and Steve finds himself smiling, laughing into it, because he’s _kissing_ Buck, he’s kissing _Buck_ and there’s electricity under his skin and he’s suddenly realising that this is all he’s wanted ever since he came out of the goddamn ice.

When they pull apart, Steve’s breathless and more turned on than he’d like to admit. Buck flops bonelessly against him, pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder, arms tight around his waist

Steve leans down to speak into Buck’s ear.

“How long?”

Buck looks up and flashes him that grin. “Fuckin’ forever, pal.”

-

They stumble into Buck’s apartment after more necking than Steve ever thought he’d do in a taxi, both of them laughing and panting and horny as couple of teenagers, drunk on each other - and normally Steve would be looking around, would be curious about the place where Buck has been living for three-odd months, but Buck’s pressing him against the hall wall and kissing him long and slow, his hands sliding up under Steve’s shirt, brushing against the skin of his hips, and Steve’s involuntarily groaning and arching towards him and oh god he’s never wanted anything as much as he wants Buck just now-

Buck pulls away, tilts his head and bites at Steve’s neck. A little involuntary shudder runs through him and his hands tighten on Buck’s waist in response.

“Buck – _ah_ ,” - he sucks in a breath as Buck nips just under his ear – “Let’s-let’s go upstairs.”

Buck draws back. They never bothered to turn on the lights, so his face is lost in shadow, but after a moment, he gives a sharp nod. He’s silent as they stumble up the stairs, as Steve pushes him against the wall at the top to kiss him again. Buck manages to flip them round, elbows open a door, drags Steve inside.

Then Steve’s kissing him again, gone drunk and drowsy on the taste of him, the warmth of his skin, the long, slow drag of Buck’s tongue across his. When Buck pushes him down onto the bed, landing half on top of him, it’s a jolt of pure heat that Steve feels in the pit of his stomach.

Buck pulls back jerkily, and slides down so that he’s on the floor between Steve’s knees, pauses for a moment. And Steve’s brain might be running slow, but there’s something off about Buck’s face in the half-light-

“Buck-“ he says, and then “ _ngh”_ as Buck pushes his shirt up a bit, licks a hot stripe across his stomach – “ _Buck_ , wait-“

He puts one hand on Buck’s shoulder and pushes him back – Buck sways a bit, head bowed, face swallowed in shadow.

“Buck, you okay?”

There’s a lamp on the bedside table, and Steve fumbles for the switch. A sudden wash of light, and Steve feels his stomach drop right through the floor, because Buck’s got an awful, blank look on his face that’s just a bit too familiar, looking at him with glassy eyes, as if he doesn’t know him, as if he’s a stranger.

“Buck, you with me?”

“Huh?” His voice is distant.

“Shit.” Steve slides off the bed so they’re kneeling face to face. “Buck, I don’t – are you okay?”

“I, uh.” He twitches slightly, seems to come back to himself a bit. Steve notices that his breathing’s coming quick and shallow, that the blood’s gone out of his face.

“I don’t think we should be doing this,” he says.

“I’m sorry –“ Buck’s left hand is shaking now. He twitches again.

“Hey, no, Buck, no –“ Steve moves to put his arms round him before he realises that might not be a good idea and draws back. He settles for brushing back Buck’s hair instead. “You don’t have to be sorry, I’m just worried about you.”

Buck makes a _ha_ noise, a sharp, cynical rush of air. “Trust a traumatised sack of shit like me to fuck this up,” he says faintly.

“Buck. C’mon.” Buck just stares at the floor. He might be crying; Steve’s not sure.

For a moment they just stay there, silently kneeling, Buck’s head bowed, Steve helplessly trying to figure out what to say.

“Hey,” he finally manages. “D’you mind if I still stay the night?”

-

They sleep curled around each other. In the end Steve gets to be little spoon because Buck goes stiff as a plank (and _not_ in a good way) and starts shaking when he tries to put his arms round him, and also because whilst all he wants to do is be a good friend and make sure Buck’s ok, his dick seems to have other ideas, and he figures spending all night being poked in the back by the world’s most patriotic boner might not be the most relaxing thing for Buck right now.

So Steve falls asleep with Buck’s breath warm and slow on the back of his neck and Buck’s arm curled around his waist, in a bed that smells of him, knowing he’ll be there when he wakes up, something rushing just under his skin like warm water and laughter and light all mixed into one.

-

In another flat across the city, Cathy McConnell is trying not to cry.

When the hot – _like no seriously like a fucking supermodel like omg so hot_ – 6’2” hunk of total fucking beauty who stops in at your bookshop on the way home from the supermarket strikes up a conversation with you, it’s a good thing, right? When you get aforementioned total beauty’s phone number, it’s even better, right?

And when total beauty asks you to _babysit_ his fucking _super cute and lovely collie puppy_ for him and _promises to return the favour however you like_ , it’s a fucking dream come true, right? _Right_?!

The _super cute and lovely_ collie puppy gives a low snarl, then performs a strange little leap and dives head-first into the carpet.

Cathy puts her head in her hands.

-

Steve wakes up as Buck slips from the bed, and makes a dissatisfied noise.

“I’m just putting the coffee on, Stevie, I’m comin’ back,” Buck says quietly – which seems reasonable, so Steve flips over and lies in the warmth left by Buck’s body, starfish-style. He drifts in and out of sleep until he hears the creak of the door, the clink of mugs being set down. The bed dips as Buck slips back into it.

He feels Buck hesitate, then press a kiss to his shoulder, huddling up close to his back. Steve melts bonelessly into him.

They lie like that for a while. Eventually Steve wakes up a bit and rolls over to face him.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Buck replies. It comes out as a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he says straight-out.

“For what?”

“For last night. Figure it’s a bit rough to get cockblocked after seventy-odd years.” He looks unsure, picking unhappily at the duvet, pale-faced, so Steve scoots upright.

“Jeez Buck, don’t be sorry about that, I’m – _I’m_ sorry I didn’t _ask,_ I shoulda figured…”

 _Shoulda figured._ Should’ve figured what?

Steve pauses. Then - “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Buck shakes his head slowly, staring into the middle distance. “Not right now,” he says, his voice low. Steve thinks of calm, deep water, something terrible lurking just beneath the surface. “You. You can probably work out most - some. Some of it. And I’ll tell you the rest some time. Just. Don’t wanna talk about it.”  Then, forcedly cheerful – “Not when I finally got you to put out, anyway. Kinda ruins the mood, right?”

“So…about that,” Steve says, and Buck gets this look on his face like he’s about to go a round with Muhammad Ali (except, Buck could probably take Muhammad Ali these days, so maybe that analogy isn’t so appropriate anymore). He shuffles upright, reaches back for his coffee and takes a gulp.

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “Yeah. About that.”

“You only wanted…you only wanted that since you got back?”

“ _Fuck_ no” – Buck’s gaping at him – “C’mon, Steve, I’ve wanted to kiss you since we were like sixteen years old, I just didn’t – didn’t _know_ it ‘til a bit later.”

“How come?” Steve asks, trying to ignore how hard his heart is pounding, that dizzy feeling lurching in his chest.

“It wasn’t an option,” Buck says bluntly. “In my head, I mean. Hell, after you saw me kissing that guy at 19th I was just pleased you didn’t wanna knock my block off, I didn’t have the balls to think about…” He gestures helplessly - then gives Steve a sidelong look, the one he uses when he wants to look casual but can’t quite manage it. “How ‘bout you?”

Steve huffs out a breath. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “You gotta understand, Buck, it wasn’t just you, it wasn’t – you know what I looked like back then, if I’d asked a girl out she woulda laughed – it wasn’t a possibility, not with anyone.” He pauses. “Used to make me real sad when you took dames out, though, never could work out why.” He looks at Buck’s face for a moment, then – on a whim, because he can – reaches out and strokes a thumb along his cheekbone. Says “You mean more to me than anyone Buck, always have.”

There’s a long pause, Buck’s mouth twitching as he tries to fight back a smile. Eventually he just turns his head, presses a kiss to Steve’s palm.

“Drink your coffee, dumbass.”

-

So that’s how they spend the morning, lounging in Buck’s bed, drinking coffee and talking shit -except soon enough, there’s a lull, Buck’s arms around Steve’s waist and Steve’s face buried in the crook of Buck’s neck. He’s not sure who starts it but there it is – both of them breathing soft and slow, that prickle of heat in the pit of his stomach. Then Buck’s mouth is pressed against his again and Steve find his hands brushing against Buck’s sides, his stomach, desire curling through him like smoke. It takes physical effort to pull himself back and gasp – “Is this – are you okay? Is this okay?”

A look of irritation flits across Buck’s face and he goes in for another kiss, but Steve holds him back – “Buck, seriously. Is this ok?”

Buck’s expression is soft, but unreadable. “Yes.”

“Promise?”

Bucky looks at him, eyes dark, and says – “Yes. Look, I’m not saying it’s gonna be ok tomorrow or in half an hour, but it’s ok _now._ ” A pause. “I’ll tell you if I feel bad.” Then, catching the look on Steve’s face, his face breaks into that crooked, familiar ( _beautiful_ ) grin, and he says “Yes, I fuckin’ promise, hotshot. You gonna let me get my hands on you or what?”

And – well, there’s only so much a guy can take. Steve cups Buck’s face, kisses him again, and then Buck’s pushing the two of them back against the headboard, tugging at the hem of Steve’s shirt. Steve takes the hint, pulls it off, and then Buck is – _God_ \- straddling him, hands sliding down his forearms, pushing him back, pinning his wrists to the bed. He kisses him again, hungry, grinding their hips together. Steve slides his hands up under Buck’s shirt, tugs at the hem, questioning, but Buck pulls back a little, hesitation flickering across his face.

“There’re – scars,” he says haltingly. “From – I’ll show you another time, when we’re not-“

Steve presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, sliding his hands back to Buck’s waist. “No worries, Buck.”

Another flicker of _something_ , some soft and open feeling that makes Steve’s chest go tight. Buck kisses him again, slowly this time, eyes open. Steve slides a hand round the back of his neck, and for a moment they still, just breathing against each other. Then Buck draws back in, kisses him properly, tongue in his mouth and _fuck_ he knows how to kiss, every slow flick of it making Steve’s insides clench, hips bucking involuntarily up against his and Buck’s just smirking into his mouth, grinding down against him until Steve’s practically whining, gasping with it, _aching_ -

Buck’s clambering off him, pulling him round so they’re lying face to face. His hand is at Steve’s hip, thumb brushing against him through his pants and fuck, Steve’s pretty sure he’s never been so turned on in his life. He’s alive with it, every muscle taught, the light brighter, colours more sharp.

“I’m gonna need you to take these off,” Buck murmurs into his ear, tugging at the waistband of his pants. Steve scrambles to undo them, and after a moment’s hesitation so does Buck, sliding them down his hips, kicking them off the end of the bed.

Then Buck’s pressing up against him, on top of him, straddling one of Steve’s thighs, one hand at the side of his face and the other reaching down. His thumb brushes against him and Steve moans into his mouth, hips canting, feeling Buck’s cock against his thigh, his stomach, Buck’s fingers stroking lightly, lightly, until he’s so desperate for more he thinks he’s actually gonna scream. Then Buck slides his hand around him, begins to jerk him off slowly – _Christ_ \- firmly, Steve shaking underneath him, gasping for breath. Helplessly clinging to his shoulders, Buck picking up the pace until Steve’s saying “Oh god Buck, I’m gonna – you – I-“ - and Buck just draws back, looks into his eyes and says “ _Good_ ”. His hand is twisting just so, thumb rubbing the underside of his cock, and then Steve’s clinging to Buck, arching up against him, coming so hard he could swear his vision whites out.

He collapses back against the sheets. Buck’s lips are on his, and Steve distantly notices that Buck’s still grinding against him, can feel the wetness and heat of his cock against his stomach. So he kisses him, rubbing the back of his neck as Buck’s hips jerk desperately against his own, fast, jerky, until that final long, juddering moment where every muscle in his body goes tense, before he crumples onto Steve’s chest, boneless.

There’s a slow moment of silence before Steve notices he’s trembling – with a sudden jolt of anxiety, he wonders if Buck’s crying – but then he raises his head and he’s laughing, face open and at peace.

“Fuck,” he says, rolling off him, lying on his back. “ _Fuck_.”

Then Steve’s laughing too, lying breathless in the sheets in the morning light with his best friend beside him, and for the first time in a long while, he feels like everything might just be okay.

-

Three days later, Buck appears outside Steve’s hotel room with a hold-all at his feet and a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

“C’mon Stevie,” he says. “This town’s a drag. Let’s move on out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! To be honest, I'm not sure if I'll come back to this, but I hope this (monstrous, 6k word) chapter offers at least a little bit of resolution. Thank you all for reading x


End file.
